Microland

Microland

Type	Private
Industry	Remote Infrastructure Management
Founded	1989
Headquarters	Bangalore, India
Key people	Pradeep Kar, Chairman Managing Director
Services	Smartnow- Infrastructure Management IT Modernization Process Maturity Assurance and Compliance Tech Support Smartfuture- Collaboration Mobility Virtualization Cloud Computing
Website	http://www.microland.com/index.php

Microland is an IT infrastructure services provider, offering services across Infrastructure Management, Infrastructure Modernization, Process Maturity Services, Assurance and Compliance, Technical Support, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Collaboration and Mobility.

The headquarters of Microland are in Bangalore, India. Microland was started by Pradeep Kar in August 1989. The company currently has over 2300 employees. Microland's services have been delivered to more than 200 clients worldwide in recent years, many in the Fortune 500 list, whose businesses include manufacturing, chemicals, aviation, banking and finance, mortgage, health care, software, consumer level products, semi-conductors, retail chains and business process outsourcing (BPO), to name a few.

Microland currently has ongoing alliances with companies such as Microsoft, CISCO, Avaya, ChangeBASE, Sybase, Symantec and VMware.

History

Microland was started in Bangalore, India in August 1989 with a key focus on hardware and networking products. Over the next 5 years, Microland introduced several companies like Novell (1989), Compaq (1992), Synoptics & Cisco (1993), Checkpoint & Netscape (1995).

In 1998, Microland moved out of the hardware supply market and started moving towards the ‘internet – economy’. Riding on the internet boom they began developing software tools for the web and launched portals such as Indya.com^[1], Planetasia.com, ITspace.com^[2] and NetBramha.

Microland also started investing in the IT infrastructure services market which has remained its main area of focus till date.^[3][4] In 2005 Microland signed a strategic alliance with Serco Solutions, UK, for providing remote IT Infrastructure Management Services (IMS). Microland inaugurated a dedicated operations center for providing remote IT infrastructure management services (IMS) to Remote Solutions.

The same year Microland also announced a closure of USD 7.5 million in funding led by existing investors for fuelling growth capital and investment in new infrastructure^[5]. This was followed by a second round of funding of 11 million USD in 2006^[6].

In 2007 Microland set up its multi network operations center by setting up six network operations center, six tech labs, four data centers and a penetration testing lab^[7]. In 2008, Microland expanded its service lines through the inclusion of Managed Security Assessment and ITSM consulting to its portfolio.

The year 2009 saw appointments to key leadership positions in Microland including Chief Operating Officer- Mr. Jawahar Bekay and Chief Marketing Officer- Mr. V M Kumar.

In 2010, Microland signed partnerships with Sybase and ChangeBASE for providing enterprise mobility services and application remediation services respectively. Microland appointed its Chief Strategy officer- Mohit Jain.

In 2011, additions in key leadership positions continued with the joining of Executive Vice President (International Sales)- Bala Palamadai, Chief Innovation Officer- M S Rangaraj and Chief People Officer- P N S V Narasimham. A significant milestone for Microland was the signing of a strategic multi-year contract valued at $55 million with Serco Limited, UK^[8][9][10]. As part of this contract, Microland would continue to provide specialist support for a range of devices through an expanded team located in Birmingham, UK, and Bangalore, India.

Locations

Microland is headquartered at RMZ Ecospace, Bangalore. It also has facilities at Cyber Park, Electronic City, Bangalore (Dedicated OMC). It has offices at

• Phoenix House, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai
• Audi Nivas, Chinnaiah Street, T.Nagar, Chennai
• No 6 & 7, Palm court, Sector 14, 20/4 Sukrali Chowk, Gurgaon

USA:

• 2880, Zanker Road, Suite #210, San Jose CA (US)
• 5, Independence Way, Suite 300, Princeton, NJ (US)

Canada:

• 2810 Matheson Blvd. E, Suite #200, Mississauga, Ontario

United Kingdom:

• 1 Bell Street, Maidenhead, Berkshire in UK

Mascot

HiQu is Microland’s mascot. It is Pronounced – High Q, sounding similar to IQ, and stands for High IQ, Smartness and Intelligence. It also sounds like Haiku (the Japanese poetry form), signifying profound ideas in a small package, and creativity.

References

1. ^ "Murdoch buys indya.com.". news.bbc.co.uk. 2 August 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1469951.stm. Retrieved 2001-08-02. 
2. ^ "Star TV picks 15% stake in ITspace.com .". www.financialexpress.com. 28 June 2000. http://www.financialexpress.com/old/fe/daily/20000628/fec28031.html. Retrieved 2000-06-28. 
3. ^ "Microland Version 3.0: Can Pradeep Kar pull it off?". www.expresscomputeronline.com. 11 February 2002. http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20020211/newsan1.shtml. Retrieved 2002-02-11. 
4. ^ "Forrester report that Microland are one the early providers for IT infrastructure support". www.forrester.com. 9 December 2005. http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,37980,00.html. 
5. ^ "Microland receives funding of $7.5 m". www.deccanherald.com. 13 January 2005. http://archive.deccanherald.com/Deccanherald/jan132005/b12.asp. 
6. ^ "Microland has raised $11 Million funding from investors.". www.redherring.com. 7 August 2006. http://www.redherring.com/Home/17881. Retrieved 2006-08-07. 
7. ^ "A Forrester report suggests that smaller India-based Infrastructure Providers can be the right size for the right clients and Microland is one of those providers". www.forrester.com. 18 September 2007. http://www.niit-tech.com/images/Smaller%20India-based%20infrastructure%20providers.pdf. 
8. ^ "Microland Gets $55 Million Contract Extension From UK's Serco.". Wall Street Journal. 10 August 2011. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110810-707986.html. 
9. ^ "Microland Signs $55 Million Contract From Serco.". Microland News. 10 August 2011. http://www.microland.com/news.php. 
10. ^ "Microland Signs $55 Million Contract with Serco for IT Infrastructure Management Services.". Microland Press Releases. 10 August 2011. http://www.microland.com/press_releases.php. 

External links

• Microland Limited's official site
• Indya.com (Launched 5 March 2000)
• "Microland: Where change is the buzzword!". www.expresscomputeronline.com. 9 February 2004. http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20040209/companywatch01.shtml. Retrieved 2004-02-09. 
• "Sharad Heda, COO Microland Limted, interview on NASSCOM". www.nasscom.in. 14 January 2008. http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=53301. 
• "Microland secures Rs.52 crore funding". www.eetindia.co.in. 16 August 2008. http://www.eetindia.co.in/ART_8800429846_1800001_NT_90035864.HTM. Retrieved 2006-08-16. 
• "Pradeep Kar does not like to prognosticate about the Indian IT industry.". www.financialexpress.com. 30 September 2007. http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Tech-Sweepstakes/214145/0.