Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pushes for less friction with government work

“I would love to have less friction in doing business, as I am a person who always pushes for more. At the same time, I don’t think if things had not changed, we’d have been able to achieve what we’ve achieved in the past 12 months with our cloud offering in this country. But I like to push for more,” Nadella told a select group of editors. The Hyderabad-born Nadella, the first Microsoft chief from outside the US, was in Mumbai to launch his company’s largest-ever customer conference here as a part of the Richmond-based tech giant’s 25 years of operations in the country. Explaining further, Nadella said he is surprised by the number of government bodies that have adopted Microsoft’s cloud services launched one year ago with three cloud data centers in Mumbai, Pune and Chennai. “I am extremely positive about the cloud business. It’s not just private sector but a large number of government bodies are already on our cloud platform,” said Nadella. Microsoft is in India for the long-term, he said. “What is happening here is not only in the government, but also in the private sector, the broader economy as a whole, and that’s where my optimism comes from. “Also, looking at the progress we’ve made in the last 12 months in the cloud business, I think this was possible because of all the structural reforms happening,” he said. However, the tech guru was quick to add that he would be happy to see faster growth, saying “we as a company always want to go faster and well, we want more of course, while at the same time I am optimistic at the rate of change that’s happening, and the rate of adoption. “Because it’s one thing to open something up, but it’s much more gratifying to see that what you have done is actually at the hands of entrepreneurs, public sector organizations and large businesses been converted into value both locally and globally,” Nadella said. After being in one of the lowest among the nations in ease of doing business ranking, the World Bank last week ranked India at 130, up 14 notches. PTI