Microsoft Romania sees silver lining in cloud computing

Microsoft Romania has seen its turnover back upwards from December last year and hopes to achieve a 6 percent hike in its revenues for the fiscal year 2011, compared to 2010, the company has announced without disclosing the actual sales figure. Microsoft Romania posted a sales increase of 3 percent during January – June this year. The company's main priority will be the cloud computing segment, which will also help it reduce the rate of software piracy, which stays at 65 percent in Romania, almost double the average in the European Union. “Could computing is not an option, a concept or a strategy, it's Microsoft's new business model, and the business model for the future of other companies as well,” said Calin Tatomir, general manager of Microsoft Romania. “Perhaps half of the clients will look at cloud computing in five years. We already have many customers for cloud computing services – law firms, consultants. There will be larger companies which will still be reserved, like banks, telecom companies,” Tatomir has added. Microsoft Romania offers Microsoft Online Services, Microsoft Azure Platform, Live@Edu and Windows Live, all part of the cloud computing package. It also plans to launch CRM Online and Windows Intune in 2011. Cloud computing is an Internet-based computing, with services and storage provided over the Internet - also called 'the cloud'. Some of the company's expected revenues growth will be triggered by the Microsoft Dynamics suite, which includes enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software. Microsoft's growth has been fueled by launching new products in Romania this year, among which Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Office 2010 in English, Sharepoint Server 2010, among others. Tatomir, who took the helm of the company two years ago, reshuffled the company, changed the top management structure and tried to make the organization more flexible, he said. “We're active on a very dynamic market, only those who will move fast will reap the benefits,” said Tatomir. With the company's revenues equally distributed among all its types of clients, which include small and medium companies, retail users and public institutions, Microsoft plans to increase its market share, after having invested in training partners, while focusing on the human resources side of the organization. It also plans to continue re-shaping the structure of the company, hiring more staff for the cloud computing segment. Corina Saceanu (corina@romania-insider.com)