Firstpost
  • Home
  • Video Shows
    Vantage Firstpost America Firstpost Africa First Sports
  • World
    US News
  • Explainers
  • News
    India Opinion Cricket Tech Entertainment Sports Health Photostories
  • Asia Cup 2025
Apple Incorporated Modi ji Justin Trudeau Trending

Sections

  • Home
  • Live TV
  • Videos
  • Shows
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Health
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Business
  • Impact Shorts

Shows

  • Vantage
  • Firstpost America
  • Firstpost Africa
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Flashback
  • Live TV

Events

  • Raisina Dialogue
  • Independence Day
  • Champions Trophy
  • Delhi Elections 2025
  • Budget 2025
  • US Elections 2024
  • Firstpost Defence Summit
Trending:
  • Nepal protests
  • Nepal Protests Live
  • Vice-presidential elections
  • iPhone 17
  • IND vs PAK cricket
  • Israel-Hamas war
fp-logo
Reliance-Microsoft alliance could pose threat to Google and Amazon in India
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter
Apple Incorporated Modi ji Justin Trudeau Trending

Sections

  • Home
  • Live TV
  • Videos
  • Shows
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Health
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Business
  • Impact Shorts

Shows

  • Vantage
  • Firstpost America
  • Firstpost Africa
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Flashback
  • Live TV

Events

  • Raisina Dialogue
  • Independence Day
  • Champions Trophy
  • Delhi Elections 2025
  • Budget 2025
  • US Elections 2024
  • Firstpost Defence Summit
  • Home
  • Tech
  • News & Analysis
  • Reliance-Microsoft alliance could pose threat to Google and Amazon in India

Reliance-Microsoft alliance could pose threat to Google and Amazon in India

Reuters • August 13, 2019, 07:44:37 IST
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter

In this alliance, Reliance Jio will build data centres in India that will be hosted on Microsoft’s Azure.

Advertisement
Subscribe Join Us
Add as a preferred source on Google
Prefer
Firstpost
On
Google
Reliance-Microsoft alliance could pose threat to Google and Amazon in India

Reliance Industries Ltd on Monday **announced a partnership with Microsoft's Azure cloud platform** , in a move that deepens the offerings of its Jio telecoms unit while posing a direct challenge to rival cloud services providers such as Amazon.com and Alphabet’s Google. As part of the 10-year alliance, Jio will build data centres across India that will be hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud, Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani told shareholders at the company annual shareholders’ meeting. “We now have the capability to develop truly India-native solutions, including speech recognition and natural language understanding for all major Indian languages and dialects,” said Ambani, Asia’s richest man with a net worth of $46.2 billion according to Forbes.

Our partnership with Jio will bring the power of Azure, Azure AI and Office 365 to millions of businesses in India – helping them innovate and grow. https://t.co/9EYYwPZvX2

— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) August 12, 2019

Reliance’s foray into the cloud services market - essentially selling computer services such as website hosting and data storage — could intensify competition in an Indian market dominated by Amazon Web Services (AWS), say analysts. (Also read:  JioFiber broadband internet service rollout starts from 5 September; monthly plans begin from Rs 700 onwards ) [caption id=“attachment_7153851” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”]Representational image. Image: Reuters Representational image.
Image: Reuters[/caption] “Other cloud players like AWS and Google will have to come up with new, perhaps cheaper pricing models for India,” said Satyajit Sinha, an analyst at tech consultancy Counterpoint. Ambani has always dubbed Jio a technology company, and used it to launch internet-enabled devices, deliver entertainment services, build fibre broadband and develop other offerings. The Reliance-Microsoft partnership could help Jio extend its services to India’s booming start-up ecosystem. On Monday, addressing Reliance shareholders via a recorded video message, Microsoft’s Indian-born Chief Executive Satya Nadella said: “Together, we will offer comprehensive technology solutions – from compute and storage, to connectivity and productivity – to small and medium businesses everywhere in the country.”

Price War

Jio would provide free connectivity and cloud infrastructure to start-ups, Ambani said, adding the company would offer a “bundle of connectivity, productivity and automation tools” to micro, small and medium business for as little as Rs 1,500 ($21.05) a month. “This pricing of elementary services is really the rock bottom price,” said Naveen Mishra, of tech researcher Gartner. Rivals such as Amazon Web Services and Google offer similar services at multiple times that price, and technology analysts said Ambani’s move could spark a price war in the Indian cloud market, expected to grow at an average 23 percent annually over the next five years to touch $5.6 billion. Amazon’s cloud services unit declined to comment on the matter. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “We definitely will reassess whether we should keep using AWS or something else, because storage is a huge cost,” said Aprameya Radhakrishna, the founder and CEO of Vokal, an audio-video knowledge-sharing platform similar to Quora. “India is a price-conscious nation in general and anything which is competing on price will definitely get attention.” Reliance’s big push into cloud services also comes as India, one of the world’s fastest-growing web services markets, is framing a data privacy law, drafts of which have emphasized storage of key consumer data locally. The country’s central bank has also asked foreign firms such as Mastercard and Visa to store payments data solely in India. “Companies that have a fairly mature IT adoption or those that are playing with a lot of Indian consumer data, they might prefer to move to (Reliance) because this data is guaranteed to be stored locally,” said Krishna Iyer, an independent technology advisor who was previously a senior executive at cloud services firm Akamai Technologies.

.@reliancejio #JioFiber is set to be made commercially available from 5th September’19 with a monthly starting price of Rs 700. Here are the major highlights from #RIL42ndAGM @nimsaw pic.twitter.com/hFx2RZm1xa

— Tech2 (@tech2eets) August 12, 2019
More from News & Analysis
What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?
Tags
Reliance Industries Reliance Microsoft Reliance Jio Azure Cloud Service JioFiber Microsoft's Azure
End of Article
Latest News
Find us on YouTube
Subscribe
End of Article

Top Stories

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Top Shows

Vantage Firstpost America Firstpost Africa First Sports
Latest News About Firstpost
Most Searched Categories
  • Web Stories
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • IPL 2025
NETWORK18 SITES
  • News18
  • Money Control
  • CNBC TV18
  • Forbes India
  • Advertise with us
  • Sitemap
Firstpost Logo

is on YouTube

Subscribe Now

Copyright @ 2024. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved

About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms Of Use
Home Video Shorts Live TV