Microsoft Outsources Internal IT Support To Infosys

Microsoft has signed a rather intriguing three year deal with India based IT giant – Infosys. According to the deal, Infosys will:

• provide technical support to the Softies at their desks.
• provide support from centralized help-desks.
• manage Microsoft’s IT infrastructure.

Infosys has been a strategic Microsoft partner for quite some time and this is definitely a landmark agreement for India’s IT sector. Infosys will now be servicing 450 Microsoft locations spread across 104 countries. Both Microsoft and Infosys have commented on a few questions about the detail.

Infosys’s Anand Nataraj answered a few questions by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley:

1. Was Infosys already an outsourcer for Microsoft IT before now? In other words, is this an extension of an existing contract?

Yes, Infosys works currently with Microsoft. More than 90 percent of this work is new business for Infosys. Infosys currently provides several other services to Microsoft.

3. Is MS still doing any part of its own IT services? If so, what?

Yes, MS has retained strategic functions in IT.

Todd Bishop at TechFlash got a response from Microsoft:

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[…] we have had a concentrated effort to be more efficient and save money. This was a major area where we could do this. This new contract will not impact our internal resources.

John Gruber shared his opinion on the topic too:

Neither Apple nor Google would ever consider outsourcing IT. It’s a point of pride at both Apple and Google just how little they spend on IT compared to typical Fortune 100 companies (which typical companies, of course, use Microsoft infrastructure).

This is Infosys’s second key announcement within a day. Infosys’s HR head T V Mohandas Pai said that they will be recruiting around 30,000 individuals by 2011. It will be interesting to see how the Obama government might react to this.

hat tip @sathyabhat