Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd has entered Chandigarh with the opening of its service hub here,its first to the north of Delhi. The proliferation of the manufacturing and service industry in the area lured Microsoft to open its marketing and servicing hub in the Union territory. The company was present in 13 locations (6 major cities and 7 smaller towns) and would set up offices in another 17 towns in the next two years, having a network of 30 hubs to service more than 100 towns across India, said Rajeev Mittal, group director, small and medium enterprise, Microsoft (India). The company was contemplating expanding into Ludhiana and Jaipur in the near future, he added. Mittal said the personal computers (PC) market was growing at 50 per cent and the server market at 40 per cent in the non-metros, which meant a tremendous potential in tier-II towns. According to Mittal, there were 25,000 small and medium business enterprises in the region under different verticals.
