Manthan

Sify and Microsoft have entered into an alliance to promote the usage of licensed Microsoft products at 3500 Sify IWay cyber cafes throughout India.

Sify will offer its cyber café subscribers access to licensed Microsoft Office software to begin with, so that they can use the café as a virtual office for their needs. This will include training them in the use of MS Office for Microsoft Office certification to increase their productivity and skills.
The alliance will also include other Microsoft Certification program, affordable utility computing for the middle class and content for online education through the Sify I-way cafe chain.
“Our alliance also encompasses providing low cost utility computing for the masses that is affordable and easy to use,” said Raju Vegesna, chairman and chief executive officer, Sify.

Here are a few things one should understand about how SIFY cyber cafe operate

• Sify has over 3500 VoiP enabled cyber cafes called “Sify Iway” in most the major cities (149 cities) and towns of India. These are franchise run cyber cafes where SIFY provides the network and billing software to run the cyber cafes.
• Just like prepaid mobile, IWAY provides you prepaid broadband access with a roaming user ID which you can use in any Sify IWay cyber cafe’s through out India.
• The SIFY Iway cyber cafes have computers which are stripped down Microsoft Windows with absolutely minimal storage options. Once the user logs out of the computer all the files created during the session are deleted.
• Users experience is restricted to Web Browsing, IMing etc.
• Local storage doesn’t make sense, since it’s a shared PC and users might end up using a different PC during the next visit to the cyber café.

Had written about how SIFY Iway is an ideal candidate for a WebBased OS ecosystem and one that should be encouraged in India.

One would imagine that with such features, it makes SIFY Iway’s ideal for web-based office , rather than offline Microsoft Office. It would be more convenient for Sify Iway users to use applications like ZOHO or Google Office products , rather than get tied down to Microsoft Office.

Users can create documents using applications like Writely, or ZOHO , store them in Box.net and access that data from another PC or from another city for that matter on the next visit to the cafe. And why restrict this to Office App’s ? Supply chain or CRM applications for small and medium business in India, which cannot afford complex IT infrastructure or note books for their sales people,  should utilize this opportunity more effectively.

Commenting on the alliance with Sify, Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Microsoft India said, “The idea is to work together, given the confluence of objectives of Sify as a company and our Unlimited Potential commitment, to offer affordable, easy to use services to Indians by leveraging Sify’s IP capabilities, market reach over its sophisticated network and data center infrastructure across the country.”

I don’t quite understand, how this makes software affordable ? Between free and affordable, I guess free software is cheaper.

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