Microsoft best MNC workplace: Study

US technology companies, led by Microsoft, topped a league table of the world's 25 best multinational workplaces released by a New York-based human resources consultancy.

"Microsoft is at the top of the list because it believes that spreading a trust-based culture is the right way to do business, independent of size, national culture or industry," said Jose Tolovi of Great Place to Work.

Software developer SAS, network storage provider NetApp and search engine Google held down second, third and fourth place, followed by courier FedEx, networking specialist Cisco, Mariott hotels and McDonald's restaurants.

Top among European companies were British drinks group Diageo at 11, German building equipment manufacturer Hilti at 15, and Spanish telecoms operator Telefonica at 17.

No Asian companies made the list. "Asia is still a relatively new area for us," Tolovi told AFP by email. "We expect that Asia-based multinationals will show up on future Great Place to Work world's best lists."

American Express, at 12, was the only financial institution to make the grade, at a time when big banks are coming under fire from the Occupy Wall Street movement and its global offshoots.

"These companies are very good examples of profitable businesses built in conjunction with their employees and not in spite of them," said Tovoli, who is global chief executive of Great Place to Work.

The rankings were based on opinion surveys of employees in 45 countries about their workplace culture, and on questionnaires to human resources departments about their policies and practices, Tovoli said.

While Great Place to Work advises corporations on how to become better workplaces, Tovoli said its rankings are not limited to those that are its clients.

Infosys, Microsoft team up to offer cloud services

The country's second largest software services firm, Infosys, has tied up with Microsoft to provide cloud-based offerings to clients.

The MoU will see the two companies collaborate on solution area development, technical proof of concepts, and sales and marketing initiatives to address the needs of global enterprises as they adopt the cloud, across industries such as financial services, manufacturing, retail and healthcare.

When computing is delivered over a network as a service , similar to water or electricity delivered through pipes and wires, it is called cloud computing. Though the move to cloud computing started several years ago, it is only in the past 8-9 months that cloud adoption has picked up significantly among enterprises, Global Head for Cloud and Vice-President at Infosys, Vishnu Bhat said.

Infosys gets about 2% of its total revenue from its cloud business and has identified this as a major growth driver. At the end of the last financial year, the company reported revenues of $6.1 billion.

According to Forrester estimates , the global market for cloud technology will go from about $40 billion at present to $241 billion by 2020. "We believe that by 2015, 50-60 % of the enterprise workload or the activities that enterprises use IT for, will be on the cloud," Bhat said.

Infosys will offer Microsoft Private Cloud solutions such as Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center, and solutions on Windows Azure to clients. Infosys and Microsoft intend to co-create and architect cloud environments for large corporates while developing solutions across hybrid IT environments.

The two companies will jointly take these solutions to enterprise clients globally. To begin with the companies will work together in seven geographies that include the US, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Middleeast and India.

Infosys aims at working with clients as an end-to-end cloud ecosystem integrator, providing professional services on the cloud, business platforms in the cloud and a partner ecosystem. It has partnered with over 30 cloud providers, addressing various aspects of cloud adoption.

The partners, with whom Infosys also works on building IP, include SAP, Oracle, Force-. com and Microsoft.

Microsoft Acquires Skype For $8.5 Billion

Software giant Microsoft has bought Internet communications company Skype for $8.5 billion in its largest ever acquisition deal, Microsoft said .

"Skype is a phenomenal product and brand that is loved by hundreds of millions of people around the world. We look forward to working with the Skype team to create new ways for people to stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues - anytime, anywhere," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was quoted in a statement as saying. Skype CEO Tony Bates will head the Skype Division in Microsoft.

"By bringing together the best of Microsoft and the best of Skype, we are committed to empowering consumers and businesses around the globe to connect in new ways. Together, we will be able to accelerate Skype's goal to reach one billion users daily," Bates said.

The number of registered users of Skype, founded in 2003, exceeds 500 million people, while monthly audience of the service reaches 170 million users.