Dell India to roll out 2-CPU Server

BANGALORE: Dell said its new enterprise research and development center inaugurated here recently will roll out 2-CPU Servers by this year-end.

Addressing the media after the inauguration of center spread over an area of more than 200,000 square feet at Bagmane Tech Park, Kefetew Selassie, director of Enterprise Engineering and co-site leader, Dell India R&D center, said that the new facility would undertake the entire development processes of the 2-CPU Server, to be marketed worldwide.

“Our teams have a clear mission – to build enterprise products and solutions by owning the entire development process. Our end-to-end ownership of the product development process covers definition, plan, design, test, launch and sustaining through to end of life,” Selassie stated.

Dr Vivek Mansingh, country manager of Dell India, said that the new building is putting India on the roadmap of systems design, as the R&D center here will be involved in end-to-end design and development of products. “End-to-end design makes Dell R&D unique,” he added.

The new R&D center is aiming at rolling out a family of products by the first quarter of 2008, Dr Mansingh later told CyberMedia News without elaborating further. It is learnt that the 2-CPU server is a part of this family of products.

Earlier, Brad Anderson, senior vice president, Business Product Group of the $60 billion company, inaugurated the new R&D center by lighting a traditional lamp. This center is the largest enterprise R&D center for Dell outside the US. Dell’s biggest R&D center is located at Austin, Texas.

Dell said its India R&D efforts had an exploratory start in 2001. It currently employs 600 engineers, up from 100 in 2004. “Over the years, we have (till now) made cumulative investments of more than $150 million in our India research capabilities,” Anderson said.

The Bangalore center has so far made more than 300 information disclosures, many of which, Dell hopes, would become full patents. Dell’s aim, Anderson said, is to “radically simplify IT.”

The center is currently working on next-generation enterprise products, which Dell claimed, will “not only enhance performance and customer experience but also make them easier to deploy and manage, including through better thermal utilization and power management.”

The new R&D center will house 20 laboratories and has the capacity to seat more than 1000 people. Responding to a question on whether Dell R&D will increase its headcount in the immediate future, Dr Mansingh said, “We don’t want to be known by the number of people, but by innovations coming out of the center.”

In India, Dell has operations in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Gurgaon. It also has a manufacturing facility at the Sriperumbudur Hi-Tech Park in Chennai.

Dell is expected to announce its first quarter earnings later on Thursday.

© CyberMedia News