Microsoft China to expand cloud computing services
Microsoft China to expand cloud computing services
Technology giant Microsoft has announced that it plans to grow its China operations in a bid to bring cloud computing to the masses.
The company is to focus investment on the Chinese market, recruiting up to 1,000 new employees over the course of the next fiscal year. It will also expand its cloud computing services to additional cities across China in order to allow its enterprise customers to benefit from the cloud.
Microsoft has called its growth plans the ‘go big’ strategy for China, according to PC Advisor, and plans also include investing more money into research and development – a 15 per cent planned increase from the current £314 million spent each year.
The firm has estimated that, currently, around 40 per cent of the enterprise users based in China use some sort of private cloud-related software from Microsoft.
They are certain that this level will increase as the cloud is made more readily available and the Microsoft presence in the country is increased.
Ralph Haupter, chairman and CEO for Microsoft's Greater China Region, told PC Advisor, “We are uniquely positioned to help China.” He added that the growth plans would allow Chinese enterprise customers to take their offerings abroad, and would also help to drive innovation in the country."
Chairman of Microsoft's Asia-Pacific Research and Development Group, Ya-Qin Zhang said that currently the vast majority - around 80 per cent - of the company's research in China is on behalf of the global market, but that they planned to focus increasingly on the local Chinese market. “It's the most ambitious and audacious plan we have had for China in the last two decades,” Mr Zhang went on to say.
Microsoft also has plans in the pipeline to create a public cloud offering for China in the near future.
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