Juniper to invest $70 million in India

BANGALORE: Networking major Juniper Networks plans to invest $70 million in R&D in India by the end of 2008. The company which already has a R&D centre in Bangalore also hopes to add another 600 people to its 800-strong R&D team.

Juniper Networks India and Saarc MD Nagendra Venkaswamy said, “We are in the process of investing $70 million on R&D till end of next year. It will basically involve hiking headcount, setting up proof of concept labs and testing labs for customers in Bangalore.’’ The company is also looking at ramping up 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 end-2006 in India is about $120 million.

Meanwhile, the company has seen a big client win from securities trading house Sharekhan. “We have partnered with Wipro Infotech to implement Juniper’s DX3280 product for them. It boosts performance of their net based trading site while being strong on security,’’ said Venkaswamy. This is the company’s second win in the financial trading space.

In 2007, Juniper has already had over 200 small and big clients (about 25) 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 dollar tender along with HP (total deal size for both companies was $12 million) for the Himachal Pradesh State Wide Area Network, Juniper has also bid for the Punjab and Bihar State WANs which are currently on.