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Our Bureau

Bangalore , Feb. 20

FRENCH IT solutions provider Silicomp is starting its offshore development operations in India and proposes to hire about 50 engineers for its Bangalore centre by the year-end.

The company also sees a major potential in the Indian market for its transport solutions, especially for the railways and road sector, said Mr Malcolm ONG, Managing Director, Silicomp Asia Pte Ltd.

"We intend investing $5 million over three years and plan to hire some 300 engineers by 2006-end," Mr Malcolm said. Silicomp India Pvt Ltd would be the subsidiary of Silicomp Asia Pte Ltd.

Silicomp plans to move some of its ongoing projects and a portion of its R&D work to the Bangalore development centre from France and Singapore. The company expects to develop some of its cutting edge solutions in the IT security, embedded software space from Bangalore, Mr Malcolm said.

"We are looking at outsourcing a transport project and also a chunk of a current engagement with MasterCard to the Bangalore centre," he said. Silicomp is helping MasterCard to migrate from the magnetic stripe card technology to smart card.

Apart from the cost factor, the availability of huge talent pool and expertise prompted the company to set up its India operations, said Mr Jean Michel Gliner, President and founder Groupe Silicomp. " India was absolutely necessary for us. We cannot be competitive globally if we use only the European or Singaporean staff," he added.

Silicomp, which has partnered with Motorola for providing software, sees a major market for its transport solutions in India and has started bidding for several of the projects in the country. "We are developing software for the radio despatch system for the Delhi Metro and the Mumbai Rail," said Ms Kiran Grover, Executive Director, Silicomp Asia. "We are also in talks with the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation."

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