Microsoft India, after partnering with Vodafone to offer SMS search services to its 45 million users in India, is now planning to expand its services in India. The company is keen to tie up with four other major operators in the country. Currently Microsoft is in talks with CDMA player Reliance communication, and a tie-up is on the cards.

Economic Times reports that Microsoft will soon add advertisements as a new option on its SMS search, no doubt it will help the company in making more revenues. SMS is a service that is available on all mobile phones- GSM and CDMA, that permits receiving and sending of short messages.

SMS search service, developed at MSIDC (Microsoft India development centre) Hyderabad, lets users get answers to their queries by just typing their question and sending it to a number. “This is a part of our live search platform based on WAP-enabled mobiles. However, unlike WAP- based platform, SMS services will help reach out to a large number of mobile users who do not have high-end handsets” said Gurpreet S Pall, General manager (windows live platform and services), MSIDC .

Microsoft has also tied-up with yellow-page provider’s infomedia and Indiacom for local data and content.

With such facility those who don’t use high-end phones can also compete with others. One can search for their favorite ring tones, wallpapers, images, information on shops etc. This particular product will definitely benefit VAS providers. As, VAS providers earlier only saw those with high-end phones to generate revenue for them, but now with similar facility available to low-end mobile users. VAS operators will make more profits. X