For Dell, Chennai is now the backbone of two of its most important sectors globally – healthcare and networking. This is in addition to the large manufacturing unit it has in Sriperumbudur.
The global personal computer manufacturer in the past acquired two companies that had a large employee base in the city. These acquisitions had helped Dell develop products and solutions in the two key sectors for its global customers.
In September 2009, Dell bought Perot Systems to help it become a large player in the healthcare space. At Perot Systems, founded by former US presidential candidate Ross Perot, in Chennai 3,800 people were then delivering business process solutions for US-based healthcare service providers.
Now, the Dell Networking Centre in Chennai is the centre of gravity for Dell’s global networking operations. The research and development centre is the Centre of Excellence for developing routers, switches, network operating systems, network management and reference architecture for client data centres that stores.
In August 2011, Dell acquired Force 10 Networks, a leader in high-performance solutions designed for automating data centre networks that houses large data of various clients.
To add employees
Through the acquisition, Chennai has today become a critical research and development hub for Dell’s networking business.
The Chennai centre is the biggest for Dell Networking globally with nearly 200 employees. There are plans to double the work force in the next two years, according to Simon Zarin, Head of Engineer, Data Centre Networking, Dell Inc.
Chennai is the hub where Dell develops products for Dell’s global customers. There were 37 invention disclosures filed from the Chennai centre, and 17 in the first quarter of 2014 alone to be filed as patent application in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, he told Business Line .
Last year, the Chennai centre added 100 more employees, and this year another 200 will be added. “The cost of talent is unparalleled,” he said. Dell Networking has R&D centres in the US (Austin and San Jose) and India. However, it was decided that more work will come to Chennai, he said.
Critical R&D
Networking is one of the key focus areas for Dell in India. With the acquisition of Force10, Chennai has become a critical research and development (R&D) hub for Dell’s networking business, leading transformation projects in three domains: servers, networking and storage, said Tom Burns, Vice-President, General Manager for Dell Networking.
The Force10 acquisition has helped Dell broaden its networking portfolio to deliver its virtual network architecture to its global clients. Several of Dell’s most innovative data centre networking products such as Z9000 switches, S4810 System, MXL (Navasota) Blade Switch, to name a few, have been developed from the R&D Centre in Chennai, he said.