New Delhi: Puneet Chandok, who recently resigned as the President of Commercial Services for Amazon Web Services (AWS) India and South Asia, is reportedly planning to join Microsoft India, according to sources familiar with the matter. Both companies are vying for dominance in the country’s rapidly growing cloud services market, driven by increasing customer demand.
Sources indicate that Chandok has internally indicated his intention to join a competitor, with rumors of him joining Microsoft circulating for several months. Chandok declined to provide details when approached for comment, while a Microsoft spokesperson also refrained from commenting on the matter in response to email inquiries. AWS confirmed Chandok’s departure after his four-year tenure at the company but did not provide further comments.
It remains unclear whether Chandok will assume the role of Microsoft India President, currently held by Anant Maheshwari, or take on a different responsibility within the organization. Sources suggest that Maheshwari will continue in his current position and may potentially receive a larger role within the company. Maheshwari has been a prominent figure for Microsoft in India, actively engaging with policymakers and leading initiatives related to the country’s digital transformation. He was notably involved during CEO Satya Nadella’s visit to India.
Chandok’s resignation, effective August 31, 2023, comes shortly after AWS announced its plan to invest $12.7 billion in India’s cloud infrastructure by 2030. This investment is expected to create 131,700 full-time equivalent jobs in the country. The move reflects AWS’s commitment to the Indian market, even as its cloud computing business has experienced slower growth due to reduced spending in a challenging macroeconomic environment.
Notably, other major cloud service providers like Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM also consider India a crucial growth market and have expanded their presence by establishing data centers and cloud regions in the country. Google, for instance, invested $1 billion in new data centers to expand its cloud services in India, while Microsoft announced plans to build its largest data center region in Hyderabad with an investment of over Rs 15,000 crore over 15 years.
The growing adoption of cloud technology in India has led to predictions of the country becoming the world’s largest market for servers, as stated by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State for Electronic and IT. Research firm IDC estimates that the overall public cloud services market in India is projected to reach $13 billion by 2026, as organizations increasingly recognize the transformative potential of the cloud for their digital initiatives.
