Friday, May 07, 2004
Google to open R&D centre in Bangalore
By Our Staff Reporter
BANGALORE, MAY 6. The popular web search engine maker Google Inc's first research and development centre outside the U.S. has been approved by the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), officials said. The centre, Google Online, is registered as a unit with the STPI, which provides satellite-linked datacom services to IT firms.
The new centre "was given approval towards the end of April,'' said Ramali R, an official with the new registrations division of the STPI. Google has taken space on two floors in one of the commercial buildings in the central business area of Bangalore, which would be ready `soon,' engineers on site said.
In time, the centre is expected to house some 100 engineers. It will be headed by a three-member team, including Krishna Bharat, Google's principal scientist, and Antoine Colaco, a manager from the company headquarters at Mountain View, California in the U.S. The engineers at the Bangalore centre would work on data mining, data warehousing, business intelligence and knowledge management.
"We just want more really great engineers,'' senior Google executive, Wayne Rosing, had told a financial daily, Wall Street Journal, last year when the company announced its Bangalore plans. "It's clear there are a significant number of really talented computer scientists in India,'' he said. Mr. Rosing said the company had been looking to expand the pool from which it selects employees with a background in engineering and computer sciences.
The available talent impressed him, during a tour of India. "It's clear India is going to be a major player,'' he said. Google, which will soon go public to raise some $2.7 billion, is also setting up a customer support centre in Hyderabad. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, students from Stanford University, started the company.
Copyright © 2004, The Hindu.