Hughes-Microsoft partner to offer cloud services

Hughes Communications India has collaborated with Microsoft to launch a subscription-based messaging and collaborative service built on Microsoft's Communication Services platform for business customers.

The partnership will enable Hughes to offer end-to-end e-mailing solutions which promotes business messaging and collaboration. This service will eliminate users' needs to invest in hardware, software licenses, security and related management costs by providing a 'pay-per mailbox' Service model and includes hosted versions of Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint, and Office Communications Server. Customers will now have a cost-efficient enterprise class mailing solution without the hassle of infrastructure management and support and can rely on the service to deliver features such as active sync mobile devices integration, flexible mail box size, web calendaring facility, remote location archiving, and sender reputation filtering.

Shivaji Chatterjee, VP, Enterprise Business, HCIL said, “The demand for software as a service model among Indian enterprises and SMBs has grown many fold over last few years. Hughes strength in verticals like broking and banking shall help leverage from this service. The existing base of 44,000+ VSATs in Shared Hub alone, can bring in a lot of traction." He also added, "The Microsoft Hosted Exchange will provide more choice, flexibility and affordability to customers since they will not have to invest in buying license, installing and managing the software in-house. Hughes PAN India support coverage would increase customer satisfaction and uptime."

Vikas Arora, Group Director, Enterprise Services Division, Microsoft India, talking about the partnership stated, “The cloud is making access to enterprise class technology easy for businesses across the board. We are delighted to be supporting Hughes in their efforts to democratize enterprise technologies — and making Microsoft's popular messaging and collaboration tools accessible to a larger audience.“