Tuesday, August 2 2005 18:45 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: US-based Sun Microsystems Inc. has identified India among the four countries for "major investments" in its global Mission Charter for Financial Year 2006, a top company executive in India said today (August 2, 2005).

India, basically Bangalore where Sun has its engineering centre, Beijing in China, St. Petersburg in Russia and The Prague in Czech Republic would see "major investments" in terms of facility and the number of people, Sun Microsystems India Managing Director Bhaskar Pramanik told to sources in Bangalore.

Sun has invested $150 million in India since 1998 and expansion would "only accelerate", he said. India contributed "significantly" to Sun's global revenues; Pramanik said but declined to mention the numbers. The company grew faster in India than in China, he said.

Sun Microsystems India, he said, continued to outperform against industry and competition. It recorded a 28 per cent growth in revenues for FY05, 7 % more than the market growth.

During FY05, Sun Microsystems India added 164 new customers and saw "tremendous growth" in some of its businesses like X64, Storage and Services, Pramanik said.

Sun has demonstrated growth across all key segments of the market including servers, storage, software, solutions and services, he said. According to IDC's Asia-Pacific Quarterly Enterprise Server Tracker Q4 2004, Sun has maintained its leadership position in the non-x86/Unix server market segment in India by being the fastest growing non-x86 Unix server vendor, he said.

Sun maintained second position in Linux servers and first in External Unix Storage, Pramanik said.

Sun Microsystems presently employ 1,200 people, including 1,000 in the Bangalore engineering centre. On plans to increase the headcount, he said the company added 400 more last year and "that is the pace at which we will continue to grow".

Asked about the impact of unprecedented downpour in Mumbai, he said the basement of the Mumbai was flooded and there was no power supply for three to four days. He said there was no plan to shift the Mumbai office because of the present experience as it was close to about 40 per cent of the company's business and infrastructure problem could arise in any city.