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Microsoft Corporation is exploring the possibilities of opening technology centres at small cities in India, a senior company official said.
"It is certainly a point under consideration, but no decision has been made on this now," Rohit Kumar, country head (public sector), Microsoft India, said after Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman, called on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
"We are looking at an overall picture, bigger and smaller cities,big states and small states. Our plan is still underway," he said to a question whether the company would go into the 'tier-two cities.'
Asked if Chennai would be on the company's agenda for setting up a centre, he said: "Certainly. Chennai is one of the premier cities of India, turning out over 70,000 engineering graduates every year and which has the largest pool of talent in the country. But no announcement on setting up a centre could be made at this point of time as the company's investment plan of $1.7 billion in the country is for the entire nation."
On the company's proposal to set up a centre at Bangalore, he said the centre was fundamentally to understand the problems of the people in rural areas in the country and how rural India could be given an uplift.
The Centre would come out with a technology for tranforming rural India. The idea was not technology for technology sake. "We want to see how life can be bettered through technology," he said.