Adobe Suites, Very Indian In Style
posted in Outsourcing News and Top Outsourcing deals |Source: www.business-standard.com
In one of the company’s biggest releases, Adobe, the US-based software solutions major unveiled its Creative Suite 3 product line, comprising of six suites.
And, it was Adobe’s Indian R&D centre that contributed significantly to the launch of its star product, which signifies the increasing trend of strategic R&D work that is being delegated to India. Spread across two campuses, one each in Noida and Bangalore, the centre has approximately 1,000 people working for it. Pleased with the output of its centre in India, the success of its Indian venture compelled Naresh Gupta, Managing Director, Adobe India to comment: . “Engineers in India have been instrumental in several international projects. The Adobe India team has filed more than 50-patents,” and confirm that Adobe plans to raise its employee headcount in its R&D centre in India to 1,200 - 1,300 by year-end 2007.
As well, Adobe has announced that it will be investing $200-million in India over five years, and has also increased the number of product suites from three to six. This launch has combined the best of Adobe and Macromedia product innovation to provide the designers and developers with a broad spectrum of creative options.
With an estimated 150-MNC captive R&D units in India, even software giant Microsoft has a development centre in Bangalore, its largest outside US, which contributes substantially to its global development activities.
And, a majority of Oracle’s 19,000 employees in India are engaged in development work, while coordinating with worldwide teams for global products.
Similarly, a significant percentage of security giant, Symantec’s patents have been filed by its development centre at Pune in India, and which has a headcount of 2,100 employees.
While, almost 20% of SAP’s development is being carried out in India, recently IBM too has set up an autonomic computing technology centre in Bangalore.
A part of IBM’s globally integrated approach to innovation, the US major with a network of 63 major software development and research labs worldwide, no doubt, intends to tap innovative potential so abundantly found on the sub-continent. Similarly, its Software Lab employs 3,200-people across five cities, which makes India one of IBM’s largest software development hubs, globally.
It is not just IT giants delegating work to India; global firms have begun to look at development centres as a differentiator. Recently acquired by Cisco, IronPort, a web security solutions company entered the Indian market about a year back, to build a team responsible for developing security solutions meant for targeting small and medium enterprises across the world.
Surely, all this R&D being done in India for western MNCS is a slap in the face of all those who thought Indians were only capable of doing low-end work, and who sneeringly labelled them ‘cyber coolies’. Well then, those same cyber coolies are today highly sought after by global software majors, not only for their innovativeness, but also for their dedicatedly professional skills and services. No doubt, Indian IT professionals got stuck with the cyber coolie tag, the natural outcome of a sour grapes attitude, however, as the Indians research and develop, innovate and take out patents, benefits of which will accrue to MNCs from the West, it is time also to tag those very same sneerers, with the same cyber coolie label they stuck Indian IT professionals with.
Time also to make it clear that Western, especially USA’s technical lead over the rest of the world, is in large part due to hordes of Indians and other immigrants working as scientists, researchers, etc. on projects always headed by a white. Ultimately, when a team comprising of researchers, of whom 98% are of ethnic origin make an important discovery, their success is touted to be the result of the brilliant leadership demonstrated by its white head. Oh, really! The truth may have been suppressed and the world fooled into believing that anything smacking of brilliance was always the outcome of the western super intelligence.
However, as we come full circle, the truth is being outed, as Indians begin to get their due recognition. High time, too! For innovative R&D, the next stop is India, as the best brains in the world are to be found in the Indian sub-continent! No longer, Westwards Ho!, Indian dedicated brilliance has changed the chant to Eastwards Ho!
