Microsoft India will engage the Indian outsourcing industry to address technical concerns over data security. The company is currently holding discussions with leading industry bodies like Nasscom and CII to hold events in this regard.

While security is the biggest concern for the world's leading software company, Microsoft India will hold events in this fiscal to specifically address the concerns of the Indian outsourcing industry.

According to Jasminder Singh Gulati, enterprise marketing manager, Microsoft Corporation India, "We are constantly engaged in dialogue with Nasscom and the CII on the sub-issues of security. We want to ensure that security is taken into Indian boardrooms. "

Gulati made it clear that though security includes three important factors -- people, technology and processes -- the company would like to focus on technology alone.

"Within the next six months, we plan to conduct a dialogue on these lines in the form of events with Nasscom and CII," he said.

Security took centrestage for Microsoft when it suffered a $400 million loss due to a two-month delay in releasing Windows 2003. This was when it witnessed an attack from viruses 'Nimda' and 'Code Red', early last year.

"Factors like business integrity, scalability, reliability and privacy were given primary importance when the launch of Windows 2003 was put off. Having understood this well, we would like to speak to the Indian outsourcing industry about the technical side of this issue," Gulati added.

After launching Windows SP 2 (Special Pack 2), an updated version of Windows XP, Gulati feels that Microsoft has moved from an era of being reactive to being proactive. "SP 2 was launched on August 25, 2004, and is till date, the most highly tested product from the Microsoft stable," Gulati said.

Besides being able to download online , a user can also order the CD for free. These CDs will also be shipped for free.

"Within the next 120 days, we are confident that all our XP customers in India will have SP 2," he said.