Briefing reporters, Microsoft India Chairman Ravi Venkatesan, said the framework consists of four investments — Innovation Triangle Park (ITP), Microsoft start-up accelerators, imagine cup innovation accelerators and business model innovation programme.

The ITP will have multiple Microsoft innovation centres (MICs) with focus on skills and intellectual capital, industry partnerships and incubation for software companies.

For this Microsoft will partner with College of Engineering, Pune and Symbiosis International University to start in first quarter of 2008. It will help start ups gain global visibility and enhance their software development.

These localised organisations would also be introduced to VC funding to increase their chances of survival. The team will start evaluating hundreds of start ups on a yearly basis. The imagine cup innovation accelerators is mostly focussed on students, wherein five teams will be choosen to take their innovation onto the next stage.
Microsoft is working with National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) to jointly build software as a service for seven million SME’s in India. “The SMEs do not have basic software to work with and for this we are even working with the government to provide the services,” Mr Venkatesan said.