This should be a rebuff of sorts to sceptics who have been insisting that IT companies are increasingly flocking to other states given the civic mess that Bangalore finds itself in. IT major Dell on Tuesday announced the inauguration of a new state-of-the-art Firmware Lab at its R&D centre in the city.
The lab, which will be responsible for developing Dell’s embedded systems management products that form a part of its PowerEdge enterprise servers, is being described by the company as an important milestone of its R&D journey in India. The new facility is the only Firmware Lab to be established outside Dell’s headquarters in Austin.
Rudramuni B, executive director and head of Dell India R&D, said, “Dell envisions India, especially Bangalore as an important R&D hub for its global ecosystem. The new lab is an extension of the existing R&D centre, which since its inception has taken ownership of products ranging from servers, data centres, systems software, validation and testing, new features enhancement and building Dell’s overall core competence for the global market. Our investment in this new lab is strong testimony to the high-quality talent available here.”
In 2012, the Dell R&D Centre in Bangalore had played a key role in the launch of Dell’s 12G servers, the company’s highest performing, most manageable and innovative servers till date. At present, the Firmware R&D team in Bangalore owns 40 per cent of the global product development in the embedded server management space. With the establishment of this new lab, Dell’s Firmware practice will be significantly strengthened. In fact, the Bangalore centre is already developing software for next generation 13G servers, the Dell official said.
Rudramani offered an explanation on why the city remains one of its favourite centres, “Our Bangalore team has capabilities in servers and specifically around software. The skillsets and capabilities in India are part of the core competency that we need today. Indeed, one of every four of our servers marketed worldwide is sold with work done in Bangalore. And that’s what gives us the confidence to do more here.”
The prime focus of the lab will include creating advancements and innovations in OOB (out of band) / remote management of enterprise server technology, products and solutions. The lab will also house Centres of Excellence in certain technology areas.
Rudramani said, “Our first office, in fact, was set up in Bangalore. Dell established an R&D centre here in 2001 and this centre is the software and solutions core competency centre for Dell. The centre plays a critical role in how we innovate for our customers globally across a wide range of IT solutions, with dedicated labs for state-of-the-art hardware, software and enterprise solutions. We have grown many folds since then.”
