Microsoft launches subscription based ERP service for SMBs

New Delhi

August 7th, 2007

Microsoft India announced the availability of its Dynamics Suite of
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications as a subscription service which
will allow businesses to use these solutions without the need to install it
within the company's own premise. This model will increase the affordability of
ERP solutions by eliminating upfront capital expenditure and also eliminating
the need for in-house IT resources and additional infrastructure. Customer will
have to pay on a per user per month basis. Microsoft believes that this new
offering will allow a much larger set of SMBs in India to adopt and benefit from
ERP services.

The ERP application will be hosted by a Microsoft channel partners and can be
accessed by companies through multiple access modes such as VPN and Internet.
The Partner will also provide turnkey solutions right from initial setup and
staff training, to management of the application for the company and complaint
resolution. Microsoft's first partner for this service is Bangalore-based
affordable Business Solutions (ABS), an IT solutions provider focused on the SMB
market in India.

Currently ABS is offering 3, 5 and 10-user ERP packs for basic material and
financial accounting functionalities for a small business priced at Rs 25,000,
Rs 35,000 and Rs 60,000 per month, against the Rs 10-15 lacs upfront payment in
the traditional model -not taking into account the additional cost of hiring and
training an ERP professional to manage the application.

According to Rajeev Mittal, Group Director- Small and Medium Enterprises,
Microsoft India, said, 'By reducing upfront investment costs and eliminating
need for in-house IT management resources, our new offering makes ERP solutions
much more affordable and easy to deploy. We are confident that the SMB segment
in India will benefit from the accessibility to ERP solutions that this model
offers, and that it will in turn accelerate the already healthy pace of IT
adoption in the SMB community.'

'While the hosted ERP application has all the functionalities available as in
the traditional on-site model of deployment, customers can opt to subscribe to
the specific functionalities that they need at the moment and expand the
subscription to others when they are ready," said Srikant Rao,
Founder-Director of Affordable Business Solutions. 'Feedback from initial
conversations with customers has been very encouraging, and we believe that this
will trigger a rapid upswing in IT usage especially in the SMB segment in India.
We are proud to be the first to associate with Microsoft Dynamics to bring the
hosted, subscription-based ERP model to India.' he added.

Microsoft aims to provide hosted ERP services more broadly with a help of its
partners and is already in the process of enabling more partners across India.
This announcement is part of Microsoft's Software plus Service vision, under
which the services are being designed to complement existing Microsoft
applications and extend them to the Web. 'We believe this new world of software
plus services delivered via the Internet is a fundamental shift that will take
place in the future - and one that we aim to lead. Microsoft is dedicated to
helping users and partners take advantage of the wide array of technology
available today and realize the full capabilities of the networked environment
by delivering innovations such as the hosted ERP model," added Mittal