India plays key role in Adobe suite

In what is one of the company's biggest releases, the US-based software solutions major Adobe today unveiled the Creative Suite 3 product line, comprising 6 suites.

Adobe's India R&D centre contributed significantly to the product launch, signifying the increasing trend of strategic R&D work being delegated to India. The centre is spread across two campuses, one each in Noida and Bangalore, and has 1,000 people. The company plans to increase the count to 1,200-1,300 by the end of 2007. "Engineers in India have been instrumental in several international projects. The Adobe India team has filed more than 50 patents," said Naresh Gupta, managing director, Adobe India.

The company had announced its plans to invest $200 million in India over five years. It also increased the number of product suites from three to six. This launch combines the best of Adobe and Macromedia product innovation to provide the designers and developers with a broad spectrum of creative options.

There are an estimated 150 MNC-captive R&D units in India. Software giant Microsoft's development centre in Bangalore is its largest outside US, contributing substantially to its global development activities.

A majority of the 19,000 employees that Oracle has in India are involved in development work and co-ordination with worldwide teams for global products.

The same can be said for security giant, Symantec. A significant percentage of its patents have been filed by the India DC at Pune, comprising 2,100 employees.

Almost 20 per cent of SAP development is being carried out in India. IBM recently opened its autonomic computing technology centre in Bangalore.

The centre is a part of IBM's globally integrated approach to innovation, a network of 63 major software development and research labs worldwide. Similarly its Software Lab employs 3,200 people across five cities, thus making India one of IBM's largest software development hubs worldwide.

It is not just the IT giants that are delegating work to India. Global companies are looking at development centres as a differentiator. IronPort, a web security solutions company recently acquired by Cisco, entered the Indian markets about a year back and is building a team to develop security solutions targeted at the small and medium enterprises across the world.