Microsoft and HP expand Indian facilities

Both Microsoft and HP have announced plans to expand their operations in India.

Microsoft is to more than double the headcount at its software development centre in Hyderabad, boosting numbers from 200 to 500. And it is to double the size of its 125- strong internal applications development team.

The two teams will be moved to a single site, likely to be in Manikonda, where Microsoft is developing a 42.5 acre site (as first revealed by silicon.com last week).

HP is to expand its Bangalore subsidiary, which has been handling a large part of its own global accounting functions, and offer the service to its customers. The subsidiary has been running accounts for HP for three years and is building up a multilingual team, which is already handling accounts in foreign languages.

The first customer for HP's new service will be household products giant Proctor & Gamble. HP announced it would be the outsourcer for P&G's worldwide transactional accounts payable operations in March but did not specify the location.

Microsoft also runs a 250-person customer call centre in Bangalore as part of its 24-hour, follow-the-sun policy for customer support. It has no current plans to expand this facility.

Despite its tremendous growth, Indian offshoring is not without its challenges. Yesterday the Indian software and services trade body Nasscom called on the government to invest in the country's infrastructure.

Kiran Karnik, head of Nasscom, reportedly said that power supply in many parts of the country was dismal. He added that the international airports should be modernised as quickly as possible.

Nasscom also issued its annual survey, which showed that industry in India had grown at its fastest rate since the slowdown of 2001. Overall revenues boomed by 30 per cent to $16bn in the year to April.

Articles and commentary on IT offshoring and BPO in India and elsewhere will be appearing on silicon.com over the coming weeks. You can find them all here.