While many multi-national companies prefer tie-ups with premier institutions such as IITs and the IISc in Bangalore, EMC, the Massachusetts-headquartered storage company with 2010 revenues exceeding $17 billion, has preferred to tie-up with smaller universities that are more focused.

“We had a tie-up with Amrita University in Coimbatore recently. This university is strong on IT security and is a natural fit with our RSA division,” Mr Niranjan Thirumale, Chief Technology Officer, EMC Data Storage Systems (India) Pvt Ltd, told Business Line .

The company also has a tie-up with institutions such as IISc and IIT. “IISc is very strong in machine learning and data mining, we are also looking at IIT Mumbai,” said Mr Thirumale.

Among smaller universities, EMC is also looking at PSG College in Coimbatore, potentially for security, though this discussion can be considered to be in its infancy because only one conversation in this regard has happened between the company and the university.

Discussing the need for more research, Mr Thirumale said that EMC was keen on retaining its edge in technology in areas such as cloud computing, security, virtualisation (VMware, like RSA, is one of EMC's subsidiaries) and other cutting edge areas.

Unlike Microsoft and IBM, which setup separate research entities, EMC works with universities in various areas. For example, in the East Coast, they work with MIT, with Peking University in China, Stanford in the West Coast, and St Petersburg State University in Russia. India is the fifth node for EMC.

After working with academia, EMC hopes to monetise on its research. “Publishing is good for faculty, but how do we make money?” pointed out Mr Thirumale, but he said that even of one out of four projects made money, it was sufficient. In order to encourage more partnerships, EMC is also toying with fellowships for specific PhDs in 2012, said Mr Thirumale.

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