Force10 To Expand India Development Centre

With the global market for computer networking products and solutions on the rebound, the $175 million revenue Force10 Networks Inc. plans to expand its Indian development centre by adding headcount, investing $10 million and also deepening its presence in the domestic market.

“We plan to add around 100 high calibre engineers in the embedded software space. We will complete investing $10 million in our new centre here by September this year and, going by the trends, the investment may go up,” Prakash Sripathy, the company’s vice president, told IANS in an interview.

According to him, the San Jose-headquartered company is at a transition point, chalking out new growth plans worldwide.

In India, apart from expanding its research centre, Force10 is also thinking of deepening its market presence by developing channel partners and turning the Indian operations to a revenue centre.

Ruling out new development centres in India in the near term, Sripathy said the primary target was to grow out of the 44,000 sq.ft centre housing the company’s India headquarters, development lab and data centre at the Olympia Technology Park here.

According to him, the company currently has around 200 own employees and another 100 engineers as contract resources.

The Indian development centre develops nearly 75 percent of Force10’s software need and, in thecase of hardware, around 25 percent work is done in the country.

“The Indian outfit is working towards developing and launching eight products in 2011 for Force10’s global markets,” Sripathy added.

Referring to the growing market for the networking products and solutions, he said the trend augurs well for companies like Force10.

“While hardware costs are coming down the operational expenses and revenue are on the rise for companies. Compared to competition, the cost per port in our boxes are nearly one third of what the competition charges and is also energy efficient,” Sripathy claimed.