BENGALURU: Good news for ‘Bengalurenavarus’! The garden city of India is under consideration of Microsoft to set up their new campus as reported by Sami Khan of International Business Times. An amount of $ 1Bn will be invested by the Redmond-based software firm to set up their new campus in Bangalore. If sources are to be believed, this new campus will create as many as 7,000 jobs. However details of the whole program is been kept under wraps, as told by a close source to the Times of India.

Reports suggest that Bangalore has been zeroed by the software firm after exploring various possibilities around the globe and the new campus will merge many of the firm’s Indian operations. It is also speculated that this campus will serve as a base for Microsoft for further expansion in India. What only gives air to this fire is the meeting Satya Nadela, CEO, Microsoft held with Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sept. 29, 2014. The meeting was kept highly secretive and lasted about 30 minutes. As the motive and content of the meeting was kept tightly under wraps, this meeting is been seen by many as almost sealing the deal.

The secrecy of the meeting is also supported by the source close to the matter which revealed this news to TOI. According to the source, the meeting was not even marked on Nadella’s calendar and nor was any minutes of the meeting recorded. The reason behind all this secrecy is because of the high stakes of this project. Not only $ 1Bn is to be invested but the project also has the potential to create 5,000-7,000 jobs and the firm doesn’t want to leave any trail behind them for their competitors to capitalize. The project, according to reports will develop over the period of 5 years (Seems like Microsoft has taken a leaf out of our government’s books). When V Manjula, IT secretary, Karnataka was asked about this matter, Manjula declined to have any knowledge about the matter. Also, it has been more than one year since the meeting was help and no official word from either party has come out yet.

The meeting took place when Microsoft were running out of business, and had appointed Nadella only 7 months ago as the CEO of Microsoft to carve a turnaround strategy for the software firm by cutting jobs, focusing on cloud-related services and writing-down Nokia handset unit. This followed the biggest lay-off of 18,000 employees by Microsoft which nearly wiped out half the workforce of Nokia division. Even last year 7,800 job cuts were announced by the software firm which led to the shutdown of its Salo operations. Certainly, a top-secret meeting under such circumstances which has been kept away from the radar even would mean something important (something’s cooking, eh?). 10 cities in India have been holding the presence of Microsoft for some years already, employing about 7,000 people. Hyderabad, a city close to Bangalore has been holding the largest base of the firm’s operations with a 54-acre campus for R&D, IT and global services. The Bangalore project is speculated to have a research facility, a development centre, a global technical support centre and Microsoft Ventures.

Early reports give the speculations a green light that Microsoft will indeed be opening a new campus at Bangalore. However, these are only speculations as nothing has been told by either Microsoft or the Karnataka government about the issue. But still, Indian youth might be licking their lips at the type of opportunity they will be presented with if Microsoft does open a new campus. This may just prove as a blessing in disguise for the educated unemployed as 5000-7000 jobs will be created by this venture.

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