Alcatel looks to India for top class R&D work

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Friday, 19 March 2004, 20:30 IST
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NEW DELHI : Alcatel too raises a toast to India ’s human resources. The company is increasing its R&D activities in India . It has two R&D facilities in India and gives a lot of work of software development to Indian companies. Alcatel’s focus will be on growing its own R&D centres. India ’s advantage is cost-effective and high quality work, said the chief technology officer of Alcatel Niel Ransom. “Alcatel wants to grow organically in India . We do not want such a fast pace that we can not handle,” said Mr Ransom. Alcatel’s R&D centres are located in Delhi and Chennai. Mr Ransom is visiting leading software companies based in Bangalore and Delhi . “We are doing 20% of all our R&D in India , China and Eastern Europe . I expect it to grow to 30% by the end of next year,” said Mr Ransom. Alcatel’s annual budget on R&D activities is to the tune of $1.5 billion. He appreciates software capabilities of Indian companies. “Even Chinese companies are developing software in India ,” said Mr Ransom. On soft switches, Mr Ransom believes that its market is growing but the growth is much less than what was expected initially. One of the reasons for this is that soft switches work basically on fixed lines. In developed countries, fixed line services have reached a saturation level. Only in India and China , the growth in fixed line services is taking place and it is very low compared to that of mobile services. On the success of 3G services, he believes that its real test will be in the fourth quarter of this year when China Unicom launches its services