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New Delhi , Oct 18

OUTLINING a three-pronged strategy to sharpen its focus on Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), Microsoft Corporation India today said it is doubling investments and headcount in the segment and would expand its reach to 33 cities from the existing 16 in a year.

The company announced `Open Value' - a new licensing programme for the SMB space, and also launched Navision 4.0, the new version of its integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relation Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) solution for the segment.

"As per Nasscom estimates, the SMB segment currently contributes 10-15 per cent of all domestic software revenues and is expected to surge to 50-60 per cent by 2008. However, SMBs face constraints such as resource and staff crunch. The IT solutions for SMBs should be should be simple and intuitive.

"Microsoft has outlined a three pronged strategy - bringing the right set of products targeted at SMBs and not offering them scaled-down version of products meant for enterprises; addressing skill requirement by offering the right training and focusing on partner network," Ms Neelam Dhawan, Managing Director, Microsoft Corporate India, said at a conference here.

The company declined to divulge investment details but said that it hoped SMB operations would represent one third of its overall 300-plus employees.

Open Value is a new software licensing program for the small- and mid-market customers. Similar to an enterprise agreement (the licensing programme available to Microsoft customers in the enterprise segment), Open Value allows SMB customers to pay for the software they purchase from Microsoft over three years.

Microsoft Business Solution - Navision 4.0 is a business management solution aimed at enabling SMBs in areas of financial management, supply chain management, business analytics, manufacturing, distribution, customer relationship management, sales and marketing, service management, e-business and payroll and human resource management.

It works on Microsoft's own operating system.

The solution uses Microsoft Outlook as a front end. Microsoft has over 300 customers using Navision 3.0 offering, which the company introduced two years ago.

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