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Indian hiring, investment on track, says Microsoft

Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday that hiring of engineers and fresh investment at its software development centre in southern India were "on track" and growing at a healthy clip.

The Redmond-based software giant will have invested more than $75 million (Rs 365 crore) on the centre in Hyderabad by end 2003, Microsoft's vice-president for Windows engineering solutions, S Somasegar, told reporters.

"Last year we said we planned to invest $75 million in our Indian development centre over three years, and we are clearly on track to spend that much if not more, with most of the investment being made in hiring people and upgrading the infrastructure."

Somasegar said Microsoft expected to double its team of software developers to about 300 by December 2003, from 150 now.

Microsoft was one of the first global software majors to open a development centre in India, back in August 1998.

Several IT firms, including IBM, Intel, Oracle and Sybase, have also set up software centres in India to tap into the country's large and expanding pool of low-cost and high-quality engineering graduates.

RAISE LEVEL

Somasegar said Microsoft was also keen to upgrade the level of software development activity at its Indian centre.

"We realise that we have an extremely talented pool of engineers here, and we are going to get them to do much more than just pieces of product development that they have done so far. We are looking at using them in consulting and other areas, as well."

He said Microsoft was keen to make its Indian unit a critical centre in the software product development cycle but was facing difficulties in finding software architects to hire locally.

"Our goal is to make India a critical, or the most critical, part of the software product development process, but while we find lots of talented entry-level software developers, we find it tough to get senior-level architects and designers here."

India's software export boom has been fuelled largely by a burgeoning growth in the number of English-speaking engineers, but analysts say most of the growth has been in lower-end software services.

Microsoft, and a clutch of new Indian software product makers, is now trying to change that trend by using local engineers to develop specialised, high-value, software applications.

Somasegar said the company's decision to invest up to $10 million over the next three years in collaboration with Indian universities was part of a plan to tap into Indian talent.

"Given that India is expected to have the largest pool of software developers in the world in the next five to six years, we see our partnerships with universities here as very significant."

He was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of a Microsoft. Net lab at a local engineering university.

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