VMware Inc has opened a bigger R&D facility here. It also plans to add 50 people to the current strength of 130 over the next 18 months in both R&D and sales.

The Pune centre has seen consistent growth through both hiring and acquisitions and contributes significantly to the company's global R&D efforts including on key VMware offerings such as vShield and Zimbra.

VMware has a total of 7 R&D centres worldwide in the US, India, China, Israel and Bulgaria and the one in Bangalore is second only to the one in its headquarters Palo Alto.

Speaking at the inauguration, Mr T Srinivasan, Managing Director, VMware India & SAARC, said, “The centre will showcase new and future virtualisation and cloud computing offerings from VMware to enable customers plan their IT architecture effectively.”