Philips Software plans $50m expansion

Philips Software has outlined plans for the second round of mega expansion of its operations in Bangalore.

The unit, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Royal Philips Electronics, plans to invest $50 million over the next three years for its ramp-up plans which include a sprawling new campus in the city.

The decision by Philips comes close on the heels of SAP's decision to spend $20 million for its third phase of expansion in Bangalore.

Philips Software Centre, CEO, Bob Hoekstra said: "We are committing a further $50 million to expand our operations in Bangalore. We have signed up for a new campus here and we are upbeat on our operations."

Close to 20 per cent of software content for Philips worldwide is developed at this centre and the expansion allows Philips enhance its offerings to its global divisions. He, however, declined to reveal how many people will be added to the present staff strength of over 1,000.

The centre in Bangalore has already emerged as a critical partner in the development of strategic and futuristic technologies for Philips worldwide.

Philips Software in Bangalore was set up in 1996 and as with many of the MNCs, the operation meets the growing need for high-quality, cost-effective software development capability within the Philips organisation.

The centre's software expertise is primarily in the areas of embedded and information system engineering, architecture design, programming and testing.

The IC design expertise is in the areas of logic and circuit design and uses state-of-the-art software engineering paradigms and platforms including real-time systems, component-based software engineering, multi-threaded architecture and ASIC design methodologies in deep sub-micron technologies.

In addition, competencies in the areas of project management, requirement engineering and quality assurance have been established to offer customers, products and services of the highest quality, at the fastest time-to-market and the lowest cost of ownership.

The centre in Bangalore is structured under six divisions catering to its mainstay consumer electronics business, semiconductors, medical systems, research, centre for industrial technology and intellectual property & standards, with each functioning as a technology or software competence centre.

The Intellectual Property & Standards Division (IP&S) of Philips, globally holds over 75,000 patent rights, 22,000 trademark registration and 6,000 design registration and some 900 domain name registrations.

The group at IP&S, Bangalore, consists of professionals in frontier technology specialisations and the main activity of the group is novelty searches in areas like water marking, cryptography, MPEG, audio/video recording, wired/wireless technologies, optical storages and recording, ambient intelligence, software systems, medical systems and semiconductor research.