Jim DuBois, general manager of service management, Microsoft Corporation, said the fully integrated solution developed by Infosys will help Microsoft enhance its end-user computing services.

''Infosys demonstrated that it understood our transformational goals by introducing a flexible and innovative end-to-end approach to manage our support infrastructure," said DuBois.

According to experts, though Microsoft increasingly becomes an enterprise business, catering to corporate customers, it does not plan to make a big move in services.

''Microsoft is a pioneer in innovation,'' Anand Nataraj, head of the infrastructure management services business at Infosys was quoted as saying.
Microsoft's talent, he added, lies in ''making the latest products. They are good at what they do,'' he noted.

The Microsoft-Infosys partnership is also an implicit reminder of one of technology's truisms.

Making software and making it work tend to be very different endeavors. Microsoft, apparently, is going to stay in its end of the pool, say analysts.