• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Port Info

• Ships in Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• The Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Our Bureau

Bangalore , May 6

HAVING identified India as one of its growth sites for R&D, Sun Microsystems, is planning to ramp up its operations to about 2,000 people in two years.

The company also expects the Indian operations to work on developing products to suit the needs of the Indian and other growing markets, Mr Stephen Pelletier, Senior Vice-President, Global Engineering, Sun Microsystems, said.

"India is a very important geography for Sun and we recognise that India and China will be the drivers of our growth in the next decade. This signals the increased focus on the India Engineering Centre (IEC) by Sun, globally and we expect significant impact on the way we operate in India as well as on our customer relationships, partner collaborations and product development,'' Mr Pelletier said.

New hires and replacements to the technical workforce in `high-cost geographies' will be discouraged and R&D team growth will largely happen from India and the other `growth sites', Mr Pelletier said. "We are over-invested in the Silicon Valley and we are aware that we are under-invested in low-cost geographies such as India.''

However, the reason Sun is interested in India is not the labour arbitrage — which would narrow in the next five years or so — but the recognition that India and China will drive growth for the company in the coming years, according to him. The region's and India's, growing mobile telephone services and banking industries are not only the large customers but are also driving the demand for innovation at the company, he said.

Sun Microsystems' `global strategic programme' is aimed at streamlining and consolidating R&D operations at key growth sites. Bangalore is the largest of these with about 1,000 people, said Mr Pelletier adding that Beijing has about a half of that while Prague and St Petersburg have also been identified as growth sites.

This move will allow the IEC to develop products in India to suit the needs of the Indian market which could then be benchmarked globally, Mr Pelletier said.

Mr Vijay Anand, VP-IEC, Sun Microsystems India Pvt Ltd, added, "With the new initiatives in place, the India Engineering Centre will not only continue to do cutting edge work for products aimed at Western markets but will also reflect the company's increased focus on India and Chinese markets to work on technologies suited to the regions' technology needs".

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Lason India takes BPO boom to villages

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line