Tuesday, November 15 2005 19:26 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Intuit, California-based developer of small business accounting and personal finance software, today (Nov 15, 2005) formally opened its first product development and innovation center in India here, announcing plans to hire 300 engineers over the next five years.

Executives of the NASDAQ-listed company, which had annual revenues of more than US$ two billion in its fiscal year 2005, told a news conference the Bangalore facility will support Intuit's mission to invent financial software products.

Intuit co-founder and chairman of the executive committee, Scott Cook, said work done at the center here will be on par with that done in the United States and that Indian engineers will play a key role in creating future products.

An initial team of 17 employees is already at the site here, a 21,000 square-foot facility.

Intuit has created three software brands in the US QuickBooks software for small and medium businesses, Quicken personal finance software, and TurboTax tax preparation software.

With a market capitalization of about US$ eight billion, Intuit is the world's eighth-largest software company.

Intuit's country manager for India, Nilesh Thakker, said the engineers the company hire in Bangalore would have real influence over the products the company develops.

Cook said the company has set up the center in India not because of cost advantage but for its top-quality engineers.

He expects cost arbitrage for Indian engineering to shrivel in the next few years, and the scenario would be replaced by a tidal wave of Indian entrepreneurship.