The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has just handed Microsoft it's biggest order for cloudy wares, in the form of a deal that will see seven million students and half a million staff hook up to the Redmond cloud.

AICTE is the Indian government's agency charged with developing and delivering technical education.

Over the next three months, Office 365 and Live@Edu will both find their way into more than ten thousand at ten thousand technical colleges around India in a program that Mr. Kapil Sibbal, Union Minister for HRD said is “a step towards an informed and developing India.”

The press release announcing the deal says Live@Edu currently has 22 million users, so the addition of another 7.5 million is decidedly non-trival for Microsoft.

Little wonder, then, that Sanket Akerkar, Managing Director, Microsoft Corporation India Private Limited says "We are delighted with the confidence posed by AICTE in Microsoft.” ®