Technology + R&D News from Bangalore

[dino_srk]

General Electric (GE) will make an additional investment of $60 million in its technology centre in Bangalore over the next three years and take the headcount in the centre to 5,000 by the end of this financial year. The centre currently has over 4,500 people doing cutting edge research and development in areas like energy, healthcare and aviation and is GE's largest integrated multidisciplinary R&D centre outside the US.

The $147-billion company's MD for the India technology centre, Gopichand Katragadda, said here on Thursday that new hiring would focus on senior level positions to further deepen the technological strength of the centre. "We have what we call chief engineers, who are people who finally clear designs of products, and principal engineers who support the chief engineers . We will increase the numbers of these engineers," he said. There is one chief engineer each for aviation and energy in India now; globally, GE has 15 in aviation and 20-25 in energy.

Over the past two years, the centre has developed some 30 products for the Indian market, notably low wind turbines, air circuit breakers, portable ECG machines, and maternal-infant care products like baby warmers. In many of these, the focus has been on keeping costs down through frugal engineering. "The products developed here now account for 10% of our India revenue," Katragadda said. GE does not disclose country specific revenue. The target is to add another 30 products by 2015. The focus on energy and healthcare products will continue and GE plans to add sensing, locomotive and signaling products, the last two if it wins the bid for the Indian Railways' upcoming order for locomotives.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/17332900.cms

[dino_srk]

Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, one of the world's largest consumer goods corporations, said innovations that have marked its growth in India, are now more relevant than ever, in recession hit parts of the world such as Europe.

"Learnings" from India such as lower price points for products in smaller packages or sachets, is gaining acceptance in the European market, where poverty has returned as the local economies continue to reel under recession, the UnileverBSE 0.54 % CEO said.

"In UK, we sell some of our best brands at a price point of one pound," Paulman said. "People still want the best brands and now we can make it accessible to them."

Paulman, who was in Bangalore on Thursday to open Unilever's global technology center, also highlighted the success of the affordable water purifying product, Pureit. The product entirely developed in India, is now being sold by Unilever in at least 15 other countries, where according to him, it has become a popular brand.

Polman, who took over the reigns of the Anglo-Dutch corporation in 2009, said that developing markets including India will contribute at least 75% of revenues by 2020. Currently, these geographies that include India and China make up about 55% of its global revenues of about e 46 billion.

Last month, Unilever had reported its third quarter revenues e 13.4 billion, aided by strong sales from emerging markets including India.

In India, Unilever operates as Hindustan Unilever LtdBSE 0.54 %, country's largest FMCG company, listed on BSE and having revenues of around Rs 21,000 crore.

Polman, who is known for pushing sustainable business practices within Unilever, said that it is possible to grow responsibly by giving back to the society rather than just taking from it.

"You can be successful, grow both top and bottomline and still be very responsible to your consumers," Polman said. "The more we can do that, others will follow."

Polman was in Bangalore to formally launch Unilever's global technology centre. The centre is being tasked with providing IT services and also helping Unilever to find new ways of using technology to improve its business.

The 220,000 sq ft centre, the largest such facility for the company globally, currently houses 1,400 people but the headcount expected to go up as more global support functions are done out of here. Some of Unilever's existing IT services vendors such as InfosysBSE -0.23 % and Accenture will continue to support the company and will have their staff based at the new centre.

Unilever recently shut four of its plants and cut close to 800 jobs in the UK.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/17330314.cms

[dino_srk]

In a testimony to its robust startup culture, Bangalore has been ranked among 20 influential startup ecosystems around the world in a study by global research firm Startup Genome.

Silicon Valley tops the list, and is followed by Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, Seattle and New York. Bangalore is at the 19th spot. Singapore is the only other Asian country on the list, at No. 17.

Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing and Jakarta failed to make the list. Almost half the locations are in the US and Canada. Startup Genome is a project by three entrepreneurs - Bjoern Hermann, Max Marmer and Ertan Dogryutan - that seeks to capture the state of entrepreneurship worldwide.

It does it through the Startup Ecosystem Index, which benchmarks the rise and fall of startup ecosystems using eight weighted component indices based on talent, funding, output and support. The index is based on data from more than 50,000 startups around the world. Spanish firm Telefonica Digital funded the study this year.

Bangalore scored its best rankings (No. 10 in both) in the Mindset Index and the Differentiation from Silicon Valley (SV) Index. The former measures the extent to which entrepreneurs have demonstrated high appetite for risk, strong work ethic and ability to overcome challenges faced by startups. The latter measures how different the startup ecosystem is to Silicon Valley, taking into account the demographics and the type of companies started there, and Bangalore's rank suggests it's relatively similar to the Valley.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/17330124.cms

[dino_srk]

Some phenomenal startups have emerged out of India. Research firm Startup Genome’s Startup Ecosystem Report 2012 mentions a few, including Flipkart, Tally, Zoho, MakeMy-Trip and Hungama; others would add hugely successful ones like InMobi and RedBus.

The report finds that Bangalore startups are focused more on consulting (20% vs 7% in Silicon Valley) because of the city’s services lineage, than on mobile (8% vs 17%) or non-Web based software (16% vs 3%). But entrepreneurs are fast expanding their horizons into the software products landscape. Over 3,000 such companies are present in the country today, with Bangalore and NCR accounting for over 50% of these. “The mindset of a product entrepreneur is that of a disruptor. We are not collectively seeing the potential of this industry as yet. But the momentum is building up,” said Sharad Sharma, partner in venture capital firm Canaan Partners.

Bangalore shares other aspects with Silicon Valley. The city’s entrepreneurs are as heavily committed as those in the Valley to work full time on a product. In fact, they work almost one hour more (10.86 hr) than their Valley counterparts (9.95 hr). Entrepreneurs in both ecosystems share the motivation to build great products.

However, Bangalore startups are 67% more likely to tackle smaller markets than their peers in the Valley, though there are sizable addressable markets in emerging economies. The report said Bangalore entrepreneurs are less likely to tackle $1-$10 billion markets.

The report says Bangalore engineers heavily rely on languages like PHP and Java, and much less on Ruby on Rails and Python compared to their peers in Valley. Ram Shriram, founder of USbased Sherpalo Ventures and an early investor in Google, said at the recent Nasscom Product Conclave in Bangalore that a whole new generation of apps was being built with a whole new set of technologies. “Most of them are open source technologies, and it’s important that Indians re-educate themselves, re-skill themselves in those technologies if they want to be contenders on the global stage. This means knowing how to build cloud applications that scale, knowing Ruby on Rails, knowing Python and a lot of the new programming languages,” he said.

[dino_srk]

Leading developer and manufacturer of industrial antivibration systems and specialty molded components, Trelleborg, officially opened its new, state-of-the-art facility in Bengaluru, India. The specialised production of industrial antivibration systems and molded components will allow the organisation to continue to develop its platform for local presence in the region and growth in India’s growing rail, off highway, energy, telecommunications and other industries.


The investment is part of Trelleborg’s continued long-term strategy to invest in markets with favorable growth potential. The site, covering a total of 2,800 sq. m/ 30,000 sq. ft, will include full end-to-end processing capabilities including metal preparation, injection molding and post molding preparation as well as test laboratory facilities for material and product testing.

“With the high level of growth expected from the Indian market, this facility will place Trelleborg in the strongest position to provide world class engineering and service capabilities and support growth for our major customers in this important region,” says President for Trelleborg Industrial Solutions, Mikael Fryklund.


“The facility in Bengaluru brings a significant increase in the local support capabilities for our customer base in the country, allowing easier access to our manufacturing expertise and vastly decreasing our reaction times to local product and service needs,” said Ranadip Basu, facility manager, Trelleborg Industrial Solutions, India.


The facility is part of the Trelleborg Engineered Systems business area and it will initially employ around 40 people, with the number to be increased in the near future.

Source: http://www.constructionweekonline.in..._in_bengaluru/

[engineer.akash]

Science Gallery plans international branch in India

Science Gallery International have signed a partnership agreement with the Karnataka State Government that may lead to the establishment of a Science Gallery in Bangalore, based on the Science Gallery model pioneered by Ireland’s leading university Trinity College Dublin.
Science Gallery International is an initiative pioneered by Trinity College Dublin and Karnataka State Government to collaborate in cutting-edge science projects. Building on the success of Science Gallery Dublin, it is hoped that Bangalore may host a similar initiative.
Mr. I. S. N. Prasad, Principal Secretary, Department of IT, BT and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka, announced that his Government will commission a feasibility study into the potential for Science Gallery Bangalore, and will establish a Steering Committee to oversee its preparation. This will ensure the active participation of key stakeholders in the academic, research and cultural communities, including the Indian Institute of Science, the National Centre for Biological Sciences, and Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology.
Science Gallery Dublin uses broad themes to create multidisciplinary exhibition programmes, targeting 15-25 year olds. It aims “to ignite creativity where science and art collide” and has received more than one million visitors in just five years. With its innovative approach, engaging young adults with cutting-edge culture, it has built up a significant international profile. It is now being developed internationally and last year Science Gallery International received a gift of €1million from Google.org as seed-funding towards the formation of a Global Science Gallery Network.
“With a highly-educated, creative and technologically aware population, Bangalore is the ideal location for a Science Gallery in India,” commented the founding director of Science Gallery Michael John Gorman who was in Bangalore to sign the partnership. He also delivered a public lecture entitled ‘Bridging Art, Science and Technology’ at Bangalore’s National Gallery of Modern Art to mark the event.
“We look forward to studying the potential for developing Science Gallery Bangalore, which we hope will be equally successful, not only in showcasing cutting edge science, but also in reaching out to the widest possible public in an innovative and compelling manner. ” said Mr. Prasad.
“Science Gallery Dublin has been enormously successful in communicating world leading research at Trinity College Dublin to the citizens of Dublin, Ireland’s capital city and to the Irish public in general. A similar initiative in Bangalore would further reinforce its reputation as an innovative and creative hub,” concluded the Provost of Trinity College Dublin, Dr Patrick Prendergast on the occasion of the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding.
Advanced talks are also underway with the UK’s prestigious university, King’s College London with a view to establishing a Science Gallery there. Besides these locations, discussions are underway with potential partners to extend the Global Science Gallery Network to a number of cities including Singapore and New York, with a view to creating a network of eight galleries by 2020.

Link

[dino_srk]

US based water heater manufacturer AO Smith is planning to invest around $20 million (Rs 100 crore) in India to expand its manufacturing facility from the current 76,000 sft to 150,000 sft.

The company has so far invested around $10 million in India in its manufacturing facility in Bangalore.

It is looking at increasing its manufacturing capacity from the initial level of 400,000 water heater units per annum to around 1.2 million units a year, once it completes the expansion by the middle of 2013, said Tamal Chaudhuri, managing director, A O Smith India Water Heating Pvt Ltd.
“The Indian water heater market is around Rs 800 crore at present and we expect a market share of 14 per cent by end of this calender year. Our aim is to increase the market share by 18 per cent in the next two years,” he added.

Even though there 7-8 players in the water heater market, only three, including AO Smith, has a manufacturing facility in India, he said.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/ind...100-cr/493618/

[dino_srk]

US telecom transmission gear maker Infinera is expanding its Bangalore R&D unit as it sees India as its biggest Asian growth market, a top company executive told ET. “The Bangalore lab is a strategic investment where bulk of Infinera’s global R&D activity takes place and we are investing heavily in India to support increasing traction of our optical transport systems,” said the company’s vice-president (Asia-Pacific) Andrew Bond-Webster, though he declined to reveal specific capex numbers.

His optimism stems from the rapid adoption of mobile, video and cloud technologies in India, which places “unprecedented demand on transport network bandwidth”.

“Network costs are being closely scrutinised due to macro-economic headwinds and extracting maximum efficiencies out of deployed assets is an ongoing goal for telcos in India,” said Bond-Webster.

Engineers at the Bangalore lab, which houses 25% of Infinera’s global workforce, are driving innovations around the company’s flagship product, its instant bandwidth solution on the DTN-X platform that enables telcos to augment bandwidth in increments of 100 gigs per second.

Infinera is among the shortlisted vendors for Infotel Broadband’s 4G rollout and recently hit the spotlight when it edged out Huawei, Ciena and ZTE to bag a key RailTel contract linked to the Centre’s . 6,000-crore National Knowledge Network (NKN) initiative that will link up premier institutions, universities and R&D centres.
It expects stiff competition from entrenched incumbents like Huawei, Ciena and Alcatel-Lucent in India’s near $600-million optical networking gear market

Source: http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Defau...rue&Skin=ETNEW.

[engineer.akash]

Crompton Greaves to set up plant in Bangalore to manufacture IEDs

BANGALORE: Crompton GreavesBSE 0.95 % (CG), part of the $ 4 billion Avantha Group, is setting up a greenfield plant in Jigani Industrial Area here to manufacture intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), critical in the control and monitoring of power systems.

The plant will also assemble control and relay panels using these IEDs, complying with the latest Substation Automation standard - IEC 61850, it said in a statement.

"This plant will be the base for manufacturing in India he entire range of protection, control and communication products from CG's Automation Business Unit," it said.

With the acquisition of ZIV complete, CG gets access to ZIV's Smart Grid technologies, including expertise in grid automation. ZIV complements CG's offering for grid automation, enhancing its differentiated offering in its core business, the company said.

Laurent Demortier, CEO & Managing Director, CG, said the ZIV acquisition positions and accelerates CG as a strong player in the promising Smart Grid segment.

"CG is commited to contribute to the development of India's first Smart Grid project in Puduchery in association with Power Grid Corporation of IndiaBSE -1.50 % Ltd. The project's advance metering infrastructure will ensure that consumers get the advantages of efficient power supply," he said.

Covering 4050 sq mtrs, the plant will employ 30 people in its first year of operations. With demand in the Indian market picking up substantially, the plant will first cater to the Indian market. It will gear up to meet demand in nearby geographies and further extend its market reach in the years to come, the statement added.

ET

[engineer.akash]

Tata Elxsi Launches Technology Incubator In Bangalore

Tata Elxsi, a design company and a part of Tata group, has launched an incubation center in Bangalore, incub@TE. The incubator will target startups and entrepreneurs operating in the areas of mobile, social, local, enterprise, Cloud and embedded applications. Candidates can apply by registering online on tataelxsi.com/incubate.

The company claims that the incub@TE programme is also aimed at helping entrepreneurs to take their ideas to the market by providing plug-n-play offices, technical consulting through in-house experts, mentorship, access to service providers and connections with people and organisations.

Tata group already has various venture capital funds including Tata Capital Growth Fund-1, Tata Capital Healthcare Fund I, Tata Capital Innovations Fund, and Tata Capital Special Situation Fund-Trust. Last year, Tata Communications had announced its support for iAccelerator, a start-up incubation programme that provides Indian technology entrepreneurs access to mentoring, infrastructure and investment support to kick start their businesses. iAccelerator is a program by the Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM Ahmedabad. In September 2011, Tata group and NEN launched a student Startup recognition and mentoring programme, Tata first Dot.

Other incubators: Recently, Mayfield Fund, a California based global venture capital firm,announced that it will be backing AngelPrime, a Bangalore-based incubator. Last month, GSF Accelerator, the startup accelerator launched by former Reliance Entertainment President Rajesh Sawhney had inducted 15 startups in its inaugural batch. Other incubators include The Morpheus, Startup Village, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), IIT Mumbai, Indian Angel Network, among others.

Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley based venture capitalist, will also be setting up an incubator, Khosla Labs, for technology start-ups in India. Apart from that, former Times Internet* CEO, Rishi Khiani has launched Ant Farm, an innovation sandbox that aims to ideate, build, and operate new companies by getting people across different areas of expertise, on board.

Source

[engineer.akash]

Unilever unveils 1,400-head IT facility in Bangalore

22 NOVEMBER 2012
Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant officially inaugurated its largest IT delivery centre amid restructuring

The CEO of consumer packaged goods giant Unilever officially inaugurated the company's new IT delivery centre in Bangalore, India, earlier today.

The facility houses 1,400 staff and is the largest of its kind within the company. It has been operational since May of this year.

According to Indian newspaper Business Standard, 500 of the staff at the facility are direct employees, with the remaining 1,100 coming from IT outsourcing providers including Infosys and Accenture.

The centre provides services including SAP development and support, information management and finance processing for the global Unilever operation. Unilever said its investment in its Indian subsidiary will help to boost its business in developing and emerging (D&E) markets.

"Currently, D&E markets contribute 55% of Unilever revenues," said CEO Paul Pofman. "Unilever is making a fundamental shift towards allocating resources to D&E markets. D&E led innovation and services will ensure that this is aligned to our high growth markets and will also service our developed markets in a very cost efficient manner."

In June, Unilever's UK division announced a restructuring plan that includes moving some IT jobs to India. The plan, which was approved in September, involves closing various sites in the UK but also investing £40 million to create an "unrivalled multi-function hub" at Port Sunlight in the Wirral.

"[The plan] would also involve relocating some 400 high capability roles from Unilever's Ewloe IT site, 15 miles from Port Sunlight with a number of other roles moving to Unilever’s IT centre in Bangalore, India," the company said at the time.

"In total, the proposed changes could result in a net reduction of around 500 Unilever roles in the UK," it said. "There would also be potentially the loss of around 300 associated contractor and third party roles."

Source

[engineer.akash]

Last year, Rolls-Royce announced the construction of a new manufacturing facility in Bangalore with HAL. What is the progress?

The new manufacturing facility in Bangalore is owned by International Aerospace Manufacturing Pvt. Ltd, which is a joint venture between Rolls-Royce and HAL. This 7,200 sq. metre facility will produce components for the Trent family of civil aero engines, as well as for a number of marine and energy gas turbines.

Located near the HAL airport, IAMPL will incorporate the latest Rolls-Royce manufacturing techniques and create job opportunities for highly-skilled technicians and engineers.

We plan to develop IAMPL as a centre of excellence, with the latest manufacturing techniques and training programmes.

Where do you see, in terms of business units, the maximum potential for Rolls-Royce in India and if possible could you give us an insight into what kind of investments it is looking at or what kind of local manufacturing facilities is lined up for future?

Rolls-Royce is supporting the development of India’s indigenous aerospace industry and is setting up collaborations that play to India’s knowledge base. At the moment, we have joint ventures with QuEST and TCS, which employ around 800 engineers in Bangalore. We are at the moment focussed on the next wave of co-developing products and services in the country. We have further plans which may revolve around setting up a supply chain network in India, setting up a local manufacturing base, a new services set-up and building manpower capabilities in India. The next logical step in this evolution will be to co-develop new products in partnership with Indian industry to meet both domestic needs as well as serve the global markets.

The Hindu

[engineer.akash]

Sami Labs Limited (SAMI) wins FICCI Best Food 360 company 2012 in R&D

Bangalore based Sami Labs, a pioneer and industry leader in herbal biotechnology products, health care products, food supplements and cosmeceuticals, won the "FICCI Best Food 360 company 2012 in R&D" at the Food 360° an International Conference on Agribusiness & Food Processing organized by FICCI, Hyderabad.

SAMI Labs

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, November 26, 2012 /India PRwire/ -- Bangalore based Sami Labs, a pioneer and industry leader in herbal biotechnology products, health care products, food supplements and cosmeceuticals, won the "FICCI Best Food 360 company 2012 in R&D" at the Food 360° an International Conference on Agribusiness & Food Processing organized by FICCI, Hyderabad. FICCI recognized Sami's Research and Development (R&D) efforts in the area of natural products and wellness, where products from herbal sources are identified, isolated, characterized and optimized for its application in nutraceuticals, cosmeceuticals or nutricosmetics and commercialized to meet the ever increasing global needs. Last year too, Sami Labs won the FICCI Food 360° award in the category "Best Innovation and Technology Company." Sami Labs has till date obtained 75 international patents including 7 patents in 2012. Sami Labs has a strong team of over 100 scientists at their R&D Centre at Peenya, Bangalore which has a floor area of 25,000 square feet recognized by the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR), Government of India.

"This is the second year in a row that our work has been recognized by the FICCI. In 2011 we won FICCI Food 360° Awards under the category "Best Innovation and Technology Company" and this year we are awarded for "Best Research and Development programs", we are pleased to receive this coveted award" commented Dr. Muhammed Majeed, Founder & Managing Director, Sami Labs Limited. "We spend almost 5 to 6 percent of our turnover on research, filing of patents, and generation of trademarks, etc. It's gratifying when we apply scientific techniques into Ayurvedic herbal armamentarium to provide solutions to common disorders."

Sami Labs' R&D encompasses the areas of Phytochemistry, Synthetic organic chemistry, Biochemistry, Biological analysis, Analytical R&D, Plant tissue culture, Biotechnology, Formulation R&D and cosmeceuticals R&D and Food Technology R&D.

Globally well known companies like Evonik Industries, Avon, etc. have close tie-ups with Sami Labs for development of new range of products and for product line extensions. Also, Sami Labs supplies quality products to some of the major players in India like Abbott Healthcare, Hindustan Lever, Godrej, Dr. Reddys Labs, etc.

Sami Labs (SAMI) bagged the National Award in 1994 for Quality and Innovation (Basic Drugs) awarded by the Ministry of Commerce; National Award in 2002 for R&D Efforts in Industry in the category of "Chemical & Allied Industries", by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India; Visvesvaraya State Awards from 2002 - 2011 (Gold Medal) for "Excellence in Exports from the Government of Karnataka".

[strike2]

Texas Instruments to cut few hundred jobs in India

BANGALORE: Chip-designer Texas Instruments (TI), the first global corporation to identify India's technology prowess by setting up a development centre in the 1980s, is shedding a few hundred employees in India as part of a global restructuring. This marks another chapter in the company's history and also the story of India's IT industry.

Several employees in the Dallas-headquartered firm's Indian operations that ET spoke to said between 300 and 500 engineers were being shed as part of the global cull that will see it reduce focus on making chips used in mobile phones and tablets to concentrate on more profitable areas.

"Texas Instrument has cut down an entire business unit. These are experienced developers with 2-5 years experience and some senior managers as well," one employee told ET.

"The numbers could reach around 500 since the company is terminating the entire business unit," another employee said. Both employees requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

The lay offs are a first in India for the company, which set up its first development centre in Bangalore in 1985 and employs about 1,500 engineers in the country.

A TI spokesperson acknowledged that employees were being let go, but declined to share numbers. Globally, the company has announced plans to lay off some 1700 employees, or 5% of its workforce. It hopes to make annualised savings of about $450 million by the end of 2013.

"This decision is consistent with TI's previously outlined intentions to focus its OMAP processors and wireless connectivity solutions on a broader set of embedded applications with long life cycles, instead of its historical focus on the mobile market where large customers are increasingly developing their own custom chips," said Narahari KS, director of communications at the Indian arm, in an emailed statement.

The global restructuring will reduce TI's focus on chips used in mobile phones, an area where faces stiff competition from rival Qualcomm. Also, as large phone-makers such as Samsung have started designing and making their own chips, TI management decided to re-focus its research focus to more relevant areas.

TI, which credits itself for the first ever cellphone made in India, also was the first MNC to install a satellite dish in Bangalore back in the early 1980s to export software from India.

With about $14 billion (Rs 77,000 crore) in revenues, TI is the third largest manufacturer of semiconductors worldwide after Intel and Samsung and second largest supplier of processors for mobile phones after Qualcomm.

Narahari said that the global decision will have some impact on Indian employees as well but said that there will be opportunities for some employees to get re-deployed to other divisions within the company.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/t...w/17473873.cms

[strike2]

NDS opens R&D campus in Bangalore

The new campus will support development for nearly 50% of its customers around the world

Pay TV services provider NDS, now part of Cisco, has opened its new research and development campus in Bangalore.

The company, which is completing 12 years of operations in India, claims that the new campus is NDS’ largest R&D facility and will support development for nearly 50% of its customers around the world.

With the changing dynamics of the pay-TV industry in India, this announcement reinforces the company’s on-going commitment to the market, it said.

The new R&D campus was inaugurated by Jesper Andersen, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cisco’s Service Provider Video Technology Group.

Whilst the Bangalore Centre supports innovative development worldwide, the R&D centre in India will strive to provide locally-developed solutions and set-top-box integration services specifically for the Indian market.

Solutions developed locally in Bangalore enable the launch of digital platforms with a full roadmap of features and functionality for small and medium-sized operators looking to digitise their service ahead of the deadlines in the mandate, including hosted solutions to enable a fully managed service that reduces upfront software, hardware and integration cost, it said.

Key highlights of the campus:

Spread across 330,000 sq ft, it is capable of scaling up from its current 2,100 technical and development employees.

The NDS R&D centre in Bangalore plays a key role in the company’s global development activity, with full product management and product ownership. The centre provides support for operators worldwide including Astro (Malaysia), BSkyB (UK), CCTV (China), DIRECTV (US) and Sky Italia (Italy)

http://www.business-standard.com/ind...lore/198217/on

[strike2]

One good thing going for Bangalore right now is that it is able to attract more and more product based companies and R&D centers rather than service based companies

Had read somewhere that 70% of product based companies in India are based in Bangalore

[engineer.akash]

Originally Posted by strike2

One good thing going for Bangalore right now is that it is able to attract more and more product based companies and R&D centers rather than service based companies

Had read somewhere that 70% of product based companies in India are based in Bangalore

True

[gentem]

Originally Posted by strike2

One good thing going for Bangalore right now is that it is able to attract more and more product based companies and R&D centers rather than service based companies

Had read somewhere that 70% of product based companies in India are based in Bangalore

yes, software service companies are moving to cheaper chennai/hyd/pune etc... product companies, electronics related companies and niche companies can get talent only in bangalore

[naveen_blr]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/17573866.cms

BANGALORE: Allstate Corp, the second largest insurer in United States will inaugurate its first technology and operations centre in Bangalore on Wednesday.

With the opening of its India tech centre, Allstate will join the league of the world's largest corporations such as GE, Microsoft, Volvo and Barclays who have technology and R&D centres based here.

Allstate is already served from India through its vendors such as InfosysBSE 0.21 %, Syntel and WiproBSE -1.25 %.

"The centre will be an integral part of Allstate's value chain providing an extended technology infrastructure, supporting a 24x7 operational work-flow and enhancing the technology and innovation capabilities," said Chetan Garga, Managing Director of Allstate Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (ASPL) in India.

"It will be a largely technology services centre serving in the areas of business intelligence, analytics, testing and mobility," said Garga.

The India Technology Centre for Allstate will complement similar capabilities the Illinois based insurer has in the US and Northern Ireland. The India technology centre will accommodate about 547 employees.

With annual sales of about $34 billion, Allstate serves about 16 million households in the US. The India Technology Centre may also take up some business process services in future, but that's not the primary goal, said Garga.

India has become the hub of technology back-end of world's largest corporations. This year UnileverBSE -2.65 % announced a new tech centre in India, while other firms such as GE, HoneywellBSE 0.05 % and Shell said they will expand their R&D and technology capabilities in India.

[strike2]

Sabic to open four technology centers
By Satnam Singh | PLASTICS NEWS CORRESPONDENT
Posted December 17, 2012

MUMBAI, INDIA (Dec. 17, 2:15 p.m. ET) -- Saudi Basic Industries Corp. will open four technology centers in 2013, one each in Bangalore, India, and Shanghai; and two in Saudi Arabia.

Ernesto Occhiello, Sabic’s senior vice president, technology & innovation, said the centers will handle application development, strategic business research and corporate research.

Sabic is investing more than $100 million on the Bangalore Technology & Innovation Center, Occhiello said at the Antec conference in Mumbai.

The operation will have a broader scope than plastics.

“The center would focus primarily on diverse areas of research in chemistry, material science, process engineering, analytical and application technology. Its aim is to support business as a strategic center of excellence to cater to global and regional needs,” he said.

The Bangalore center will house more than 250 research scientists and 50 commercial team members.

“India is a rapidly growing market and there is a large and highly skilled talent pool available to Sabic to leverage for the global research center,” Occhiello said. “Sabic has great expertise and experience -- with a research center set-up in Baroda, [India], in 2002; we are building up and consolidating into a large set-up at Bangalore.”

The India center is scheduled to open in the first half of 2013.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based Sabic first announced plans for the center at Chinaplas 2011 in Guangzhou, China. Sabic’s research staffs in India and Shanghai had been housed in General Electric facilities, a legacy of when the unit was part of GE.

When it opens, the Shanghai center will house Sabic’s Greater China regional headquarters.

http://www.plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=27296