Rediff On The Net, Infotech: Cisco upgrades India office


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June 22, 1999

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Cisco upgrades India office: Local Internet wave compels creation of subsidiary, $20 million investment and bigger staff.

Cisco Systems has announced that it will invest $20 million over the next 6 to 12 months in India to increase staff strength and open a global Engineering Development Centre in Bangalore.

The first phase of investments will go into conversion of the company's representative office status to a fully owned subsidiary called Cisco Systems India Private Limited. The initial investment will also be used to further research and development activity.

T O D A Y

• Cisco upgrades in India
• Asia-Pacific PC sales
• Datapro shop in Dhaka

Todd Abbot, managing director for Asia, Cisco Systems, told reporters that the headcount in the country would expand by 250 per cent to about 100 employees.

''We are making these investments because we believe that the market will continue to expand dramatically as the telecommunications and Internet service provider markets in particular are further deregulated,'' Abbot added.

Cisco's business has grown by over 100 per cent in the last 12 months with about a third of it coming from service providers and the rest from intranets for businesses, Anil Batra, country manager for India and the SAARC region, claims.

''We are seeing increased demand for CISCO hardware and software solutions in India as service providers, private companies and individuals start to take advantage of the Internet.''

The Global Engineering Development Centre, the company's first in the Asia-Pacific region, will complement development agreements already in place with Indian corporations HCL and Wipro, Batra added.

The United States is short of skills and this centre will help in supplementing such shortage, he said.

The centre will conduct development and testing of Internet operating systems software, network management software and other technologies like ATM and voice over Internet protocol.

The company will continue to look for companies with key technologies. However, ''At this point of time, we have no specific plan for acquisition in India," Abbot said.

The next phase of investments, which starts after a year, at the latest, will go into further expanding the company's presence in the country, he added.

UNI

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