IndiaRetailBiz

There is a sudden rush of customers for personal and home electronic products in India. Close on heels of the Reliance’s recent tie-up with Apple, the maker of iconic iPods and iPhones, for setting up exclusive Apple stores in India, Tatas have joined hands with ‘Microsoft,’ the world’s biggest software maker, to set up a chain of kiosks to provide home networking software under MS@Retail brand in its ‘Croma’ chain of durables stores.

Infiniti Retail, one of the two retail arms of Tata group, which owns Croma brand, according to a PTI report, has joined hands with the world’s biggest software maker Microsoft to launch a joint initiative to be known as MS@Retail.

Croma, which currently operates 9 mega stores in Mumbai (4), Navi Mumbai (1), Ahmedabad (2), and Pune (2), retails about 6,000 products across eight categories including, consumer electronics, home appliances, and professional IT products.

Croma, which has an ambitious plan to set up at least 100 mega stores by 2011, has tied up for sourcing and technical services with ‘Woolworths,’ which operates over 2,000 retail stores across 12 formats in Australia.

According to the agreement inked on Thursday, the 25th October, 2007, MS@retail would provide networking solutions for every house. Initially, Infiniti’s Croma store at Juhu in Mumbai would make Microsoft’s networking software for each room available to its customers on a pilot basis. The Microsoft@Retail would be set up as a ’shop-in-shop’ in the Croma store.

“The joint initiative of the two companies brings for the first time networking solutions for every room of a house and we would like to have MS@Retail in our other Croma stores as well. However, it would depend on the response we get,” said Ajit Joshi, CEO and Managing Director, Infiniti Retail.

“The technology available at Croma, Juhu, will showcase Microsoft connected homes which bring together music and movies, thereby enriching and enhancing the lifestyles of consumers, he said.

The MS@Retail shop in shop pilot project kiosk at Croma Juhu would showcase technology that will create homes where everyone is connected to everything.

“The technology will help in assisting to connect camera to a Xbox and put up a show for the whole family, watch movies by connecting Xbox to the LCD, as also convert the PC to a gaming machine, thereby providing the unique technology for a completely networked home,” added Joshi.

Croma is the first multi-brand, pan-India, large format, mega store, durables’ retail chain. Reliance has also entered the same space with Reliance ‘Digital’ with its first mega store in the National Capital Region near Delhi.