Symantec launches Pune centre

Investment & headcount to go up sharply for doubling revenues to $10 bn by 2010

IT major Symantec Corp, which has carved out a niche role for itself in the country, is preparing to move up the value chain and become a $10 billion company in the next four years.

Speaking at the inauguration of Symantec's new R&D centre in Pune Chairman and CEO John W Thompson said: We will raise investments in India for growth that is faster than the rest of the industry. Our aim is to double revenues to $10 billion by 2010, from the current $5 billion." He however refused to divulge the exact nature of investments.

Thompson also said that the company will strive to protect and secure client-level interactions rather than securing and protecting information and infrastructure, adding that it was the company's vision to move up the value chain from protecting information and infrastructure in a bid to deliver faster growth.

Observing that innovation would play a pivotal role, Thompson praised the quality of Indian talent which has been able to generate innovative ideas and translate them into smarter products.

He said, "We will double our headcount in the country from the current 1,700 employees to 3,400 in two years."

Symantec India currently accounts for 40 per cent of the 4,000- strong global employee base for Symantec. Spread across 5 acres area in Baner, the Symantec India Innovation Centre will house 650 engineers in the first phase and will hold 1,500 employees in the second.

Symantec established direct presence in the country with the acquisition of storage and retrieval solutions company, Veritas nine months ago.

In the following months the company made two smaller acquisitions including Bindview with a 200 seater centre in Pune and Sygate, a development centre in Pune. The company currently operates out of 5-6 locations in the city.

Symantec additionally has 1,500 employees under a contract partnership in Bangalore and Chennai and one of its major partners for consumer support is Wipro.

"We plan to expand our presence to other cities in India as well," said Thompson. He did not specify on any particular city, but hinted that Bangalore and Chennai are on the radar.

Thompson said, "Pune is instrumental in the development of our security solution, Symentac Scan Engine, the second version of which will hit the markets in the June quarter. Besides, the centre has also developed 40-50 per cent of the Storage Foundation Suite, the version 5.0 of this too will be due for release in the same quarter."

Elaborating that the Pune centre has developed two products "� Dynamic Multipathing, a software solution that automatically switches to take another path and Cluster File System "� a commercial file system for Unix platform were developed from scratch in Pune, Anil Chakravarthy, vice-president (technical operations), Veritas Software India said, "These two products are sold as add ons in the Storage Foundation suite and were developed from scratch in Pune."