Philips Innovation joins made-in-India list of MNCs

BANGALORE: Philips Innovation Campus (PIC), the software arm of Philips, has joined the the growing list of MNCs who are developing newer products and software solutions completely out of India.

PIC has to its credit developing the complete software for the first time at its Bangalore centre for a pre-clinical product used for drug discovery.

S Bhaskaran, senior director, Philips Medical Systems, PIC, said that they took around 18-24 months to develop the complete software for the product. The work done by PIC has been in the area of Imalytics, an imaging tool designed for pharmaceutical companies.

PIC also claimed that its solution will help increase accuracy, shortening development and research cycles in new drug discovery. PIC, which has been in India for over a decade, has made significant contribution to the various products of Philips especially in the area of healthcare and consumer electronics.

From a share of 8% of the total software resource of Philips in 1998, PIC’s share has gone up to around 20%. Its current head count stands at close to 1,000. Alexius Collette, CEO, PIC, said, the company was looking at increasing its focus on lighting products especially in bringing more software content for energy saving systems. Mr Collette expects many such solutions coming out of the Bangalore centre.

Besides PIC, there are other technology giants such as Nvidia and Intel which has seen its Indian arms making significant contribution to their global products. Intel, which has got its largest R&D centre outside US in Bangalore, has made large contribution to some of its latest chips like the tera scale processor. Nvidia also completely designed a chipset from its centre in Bangalore.