BANGALORE: Leading enterprise storage solutions provider Network Appliance plans to launch new version of its storage appliance NetCache for Internet security and content delivery by July this year.
Announcing the launch, Dave Hitz, Founder and Executive, VP- Engineering, Network Appliance said, "The IP right of the new product being developed is now wholly owned by the Bangalore based technology center and around 50 people are working on the development of this product."
The company had announced last year that it plans to invest around Rs 75 crore in a span of 2-3 years for its India operations. As part of the expansion plans, the company intends to increase its headcount to around 300 from its current strength of 75 in about 18 to 20 months including developers and customer service staffs. For this purpose, it has brought around 180,000-sq. ft area at IT park in Bangalore apart from its existing office, in Dickenson Road.
The company employs around 600 developers across its four US development centers in Sunnyvale, North Carolina, Pittsburgh and Boston and Bangalore, the only center outside US.
Said Hitz, "The increased investments in India compliment worldwide engineering and customer service staffs in Europe, United States and Singapore. Adding engineering resources in India has enabled global development in the areas of solution maintenance as well as leading edge development by the Bangalore center."
Manish Goel, President, India Technology Center, Network Appliance, said, " In the past year since we started our operations, we have handpicked some of the top talent in the region to provide our growing global customer base with superior product development and customer support."
On the company's Asia plans, Dave revealed their strategy is not one of stopping operations in US and starting one in India to save costs but drive high growth rate across global markets. Though China is one their biggest market for NetCache and has a customer support center at Kuala Lumpur, the company has no plans to start any development center in that part of the region. In retrospective, it would like to leverage the advantage of India's proximity to these markets as well as the skilled manpower resources, he said.
CIOL Bureau