Juniper to invest $70 million in research by 2008-end
Networking major Juniper Networks plans to invest $70 million in R&D in India by 2008-end. The company which already has a R&D centre in Bangalore, hopes to add another 600 people to its over 800 strong R&D team.
Nagendra Venkaswamy, managing director, India and Saarc, Juniper Networks, said that they were in the process of investing $70 million on R&D till next year end. He said that it would basically involve hiking headcount, setting up proof of concept labs and testing labs for customers in Bangalore.
Juniper Networks is also looking at its sales teams in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. Currently Juniper employs over 800 people in India on the R&D side and expects to add another 600 by mid 2008.
The total investment made by the company till 2006-end in India was about $120 million. Meanwhile, the company has seen a big client win from securities trading house Sharekhan. Mr.Venkaswamy said that they had partnered with Wipro Infotech to implement Juniper’s DX3280 product for them. It basically boosts the performance of their net-based trading site while also being strong security.
This is the company’s second win in the financial trading space. In 2007, Juniper has already had over 200 small and big clients wins in India and Saarc region. Some of them include Grameen Phone in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Telecom for core networking.
Apart from this, the proposed state wide area networks (state WANs) is becoming a focus area for the company. Having recently won a multi-million doller tender along with HP for the Himachal Pradesh State Wide Area Network, Juniper has also bid for the Punjab and Bihar State WANs which are currently on.
Mr.Venkaswamy said that they planned to bid for the other state WAN projects which come up soon. He said Other focus areas for them were tenders being given by major banks and telecom service providers. Juniper Networks India saw a revenue growth of 120% in 2006 and is expected to do similarly this year too. One of the faster markets for the company, India ranks fifth in terms of revenue in the APAC region for Juniper.
