India becomes R&D hot spot as high-tech firms cut costs

[OhioChick]

21 Jul 2009, 1752 hrs IST, REUTERS

BANGALORE: At Microsoft's research centre in a leafy lane in India's tech capital, a new generation of researchers are being groomed half a world away from the software giant's sprawling headquarters in Seattle.

Complete with beanbags and coffee served in steel tumblers, the centre is helping change the perception that India is no place for top-end research and development.

Staffed with about 60 full-time researchers, many of them Indians with PhDs from top universities in the United States, the centre is at the cutting edge of Microsoft's R&D. It covers seven areas of research including mobility and cryptography.

Its success, including developing a popular tool for Microsoft's new search engine Bing, underscores the potential of R&D in India at a time when cost-conscious firms are keen to offshore to save money by using talented researchers abroad.

Showing off the Bing tool which enables searches for locations with incomplete or even incorrect addresses, B. Ashok, a director of a research unit at the centre, said the innovation would never have taken root if the R&D had been done in the United States.

"It was completely inspired by the Indian environment, but is applicable worldwide," he said.

More: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India-becomes-RD-hot-spot-as-cos-cut-costs/articleshow/4802038.cms

[imdjh]

1. That's absurd. Microsoft's R&D dept. is at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA nt

[architect359]

3. Bwahahahaha! Awesome! Almost spewed coffee on my keyboard. n/t

[izquierdista]

2. What about that other perception?

That India is a place with low salaries and lots of poor people trying to eke out a living on less than $1 a day?

[imdjh]

5. Not to mention that other perception.

That whenever we call "tech support" in India, we get highly educated people who don't know and can't do shit to help.

[lexanman]

9. well

thats only the other one billion three hundred million people there. Those PhD guys Im sure are raking in the dough. At least 20 percent of what PhD's here make, so its not all bad. And who doesn't love Microsoft products? They are top notch and failproof.:sarcasm:

[xchrom]

4. there are few jobs that cannot be shipped off shore.

so, unless the dems in congress can get behind changing our major trade legislations -- it will remain this way.

[izquierdista]

6. Roto-rooter man

I defy Tata to figure out how to snake out my toilet from Bangalore.

[lexanman]

10. Tata won't do it

Because they are in I.T. Others will and are doing it now with other means. The trades wages have been decimated here in the US. Plumbing, carpentry, electrical, etc.

[OhioChick]

11. TATA is not only IT. n/t

[lexanman]

12. that's not my point

[marmar]

13. True....Weren't they even contemplating off-shoring the drive-thru orders at fastfood joints?

n/t

[IDemo]

15. Yes

http://www.blog.infinit-o.com/2009/01/fast-food-industry-tests-outsourcing/

[h1ndoo]

7. Thanks.

Repost it on endh1b.com

[seabeckind]

8. Wait, did someone use

innovation and Microsoft in the same sentence? Do they get extra points for contradictions? Nope, rechecked the sentence. Sorry, no points.

I've worked with tech folks who came here from India. Innovation? Nah...talk about being content with status quo and doing things exactly according to the specs and never asking about a possible conflict.

The big thing that jumps out at me with this whole thing is "...PhDs from top universities in the United States..." Where are OUR people? And who subsidized THEIR education?

[IDemo]

14. India is only one of many Asian nations jumping on the R&D bandwagon

China and Singapore have been gaining steadily on the R&D front for some time now.

:argh: