Aventail to expand operations in India

BANGALORE: Aventail Corporation, global provider of SSL VPN products and services, has announced that it will be investing close to $ five million in the next three years in its Indian operations. The company has already invested around $300,000 in its recently opened R&D center in Bangalore where it presently employs six people.

"We will look to close the year with 20 people and increase our engineering workforce here to 75 by the end of 2004. This is the only R&D center outside of the US for us and by the end of next year we want work related to product development to be split in half between the two," said Aventail Corporation president and CEO Evan Kaplan. He also said that the India set up would be working on the company's flagship EX-1500 solution series.

"We are also on the look out for two or three value added resellers to distribute our products in the country. We have been scouting for sometime and will narrow down our choices soon," he added.



He said that the company hopes to make its market debut in India by the first quarter of 2004. Its entry into the Indian market is part of its overall strategy to expand on its distribution network and make it truly global. Aventail had opened its office in Singapore as recently as September 2003.

Speaking on the market possibilities for VPN, Kaplan said, "A particular survey conducted by a popular business newspaper estimates the Indian VPN market to be Rs 300 crore strong in 2005. We wish to obtain as much of a share of the market as possible. We expect the entire APAC region to contribute 30 percent of the company's total revenues by another four years time."

The company had recently launched the seventh generation Aventail's Anywhere secure Access Policy (ASAP) platform in the USA and will be launching the same in India soon.

(CNS)