Nortel to increase R&D outsourcing from India
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 12 August 2003, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
BANGALORE: Global equipment telecom vendor, Nortel Networks, which so far outsourced R&D worth Rs 1000 crore from India over the past 5 years, is planning to increase its product research development work locally in the core areas of switching and enterprise voice. Nortel Networks India vice president (enterprise solutions) Ravi Chauhan, speaking on the sidelines of a function to launch its latest products, said "We have so far outsourced R&D in core areas like switching, wireless, enterprise voice, call centre applications and wireline worth Rs 1000 crore over the last five years and it is going to increase in the same areas." Even though the company does not have an R&D centre of its own in India, it works with partners -- Infosys, Sasken and TCS -- where it carries out its development work. Nortel provides its own engineers to the partners for the R&D, he said. "Our technology partners have delivered very good work. Though cost competitiveness is one the factors, it is quality, availability of the talent, compatibilty with partners which has been responsible for our strong development base here", Chauhan said. As part of its strong India focus, Nortel announced launch of ethernet LAN switches for the Indian market for the service-centric networks to carry voice, data and multimedia communications in a converged network. The switches are BayStack 425, BayStack 5000, Passport 8300 and Passport 1600.

siliconindia