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Sun Microsystems to triple software heads in India

The Indian arm of US-based Sun Microsystems said Thursday it plans to more than triple its recruitment of Indian software developers due to "bullish" market conditions.

Avinash Agarwal, director of Sun Microsystems India's India Engineering Center said the company has revised its initial target of recruiting 300 people in four years to 1,000 people by June 2003 after seeing the full potential of the Indian market.

"Every division of Sun Microsystems Inc is being represented here, such as development, testing and maintenance and customer support," Agarwal told reporters.

He said the new products to be developed at the centre included systems management, network management and service-related software.

Bhaskar Pramanik, managing director of the company, said the company is winning greater market share.

"This is a good sign. The market is bullish as of today. There are signs that our dominance in the Indian market will continue to grow,": he said.

The company's annual growth rate in India rose from 35 per cent to 70 per cent in the latest fiscal year, Pramanik said.

He said the company's biggest challenge was "to expand and grow the market."

"We have invested about Rs 700 million over the past two to three years to expand the market and increase our coverage and to help companies access our technology," Pramanik said.

He said Sun Education Services would start computer courses at school and engineering colleges to overcome a massive shortage of skilled software professionals in India.

Anil Gadre, vice-president and general manager of Sun subsidiary Solaris Software said the India Engineering Centre would soon become the single largest company engineering centre outside the US.

"We are here to tap the vast talent pool and to develop new products for the global market," Gadre said.

Sun Microsystems entered into India in 1985 with a tie-up with Wipro Corp to market Sun's products. In 1995 the company set up a liaison office which became a full branch office in 1997 and a wholly-owned subsidiary a year later.