India pips U.S., China in Sun product development
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 24 January 2008, 01:45 IST
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Mumbai: India has emerged as the largest developer location for Sun Microsystems by overtaking the U.S. and China, reported Business Standard. Over 6.29 lakh programmers' work on Sun Microsystem platforms in India which alone accounts to about 82 percent of the total 11.5 lakh developers working on various platforms. Around 6.25 lakh programmers work on Sun Microsystems platforms in China and the U.S. "There is a huge momentum being witnessed in the country during the past three months like during the pre-dot.com era. This has led to the number of developers working on our platforms surpassing that in the U.S. and China," said K P Unnikrishnan, Director-Marketing and Alliances, Sun Microsystems. The growing numbers could result in India registering more Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and the decision-making shifting to the country. At present India is only considered as an outsourcing destination. According to Unnikrishnan the increase in number of programmers will require the company to increase its investments in the country. When asked about the amount of investment he declined to provide the details. The Santa Clara headquartered company has over 26 Java and 11 Solaris - its two major developer platforms - in the country. One of the reasons for the growth is Sun Microsystems invests in training, providing free software and offering hardware at a discounted rate to developers in the country. Moreover, its initiatives like the start-up essential program (an attempt to help start-up firms use Sun technologies) and Sun Developer Network (a program to empower academic developers in the country) were getting good responses in the country. For example, start-up essential program, which started in the country in September 2007, has garnered over 125 sign-ups in just four months, said Unnikrishnan. Sun Microsystem employs about 40000 personnel in India

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