pune telecommunications major bharti airtel and software giant microsoft have joined hands to deliver microsofts cloud based office 365 business productivity solutions to small and medium usinesbses smbs by provisioning the service through bharti airtels cloud platform under the agreement airtel will be able to power smbs with access to microsoft office 365 addressing their connectivity and productivity requirements while allowing them to focus on their core business activities office 365 along with airtels dsl and internet leased portslines ilp services will empower smbs with the option to create a public facing website with their own domain name access to the latest releases from office 365 stateofthe art antivirus and antispam solutions and most importantly anytime anywhere access to documents and emails on smart phones using airtels network announcing the partnership sanjay kapoor chief executive officer for india and south asia bharti airtel said the partnership will allow us to become a virtual chief information fficer for our smb customers according to industry estimates there is a growing affinity towards technology adoption in this segment and their it spending is surging at a rate of 15 per year smb segment has shown a high adoption of cloud computing especially software as a service saas which contributes more than 50 to the overall cloud market with our superior network experience and microsofts dependable technology suite we will be able to offer cost effective and secure cloud services in a high growth saas market microsoft india chairman bhaskar pramanik said agility focus and cost are the key reasons why businesses are moving to a cloud and hence microsofts partnership will allow bharti airtels customers to continue to stay ahead of the curve through solutions that truly fit their needs the agreement will enable smbs to take advantage of a secure cloud computing environment at an opex model based pricing