Storage Firms Take Passage to India

It's no secret that storage vendors have joined the throng of U.S. tech suppliers tapping into the vast pool of engineering talent in India, but now the pace is picking up.

McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDTA) is currently in talks with an outsourcer in that country to take on some of the switch vendor's software development, though no deal has officially been struck, according to Indian press reports. And during the past year, Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD) has contracted Bangalore-based outsourcing powerhouse Wipro Ltd. (NYSE: WIT) for development and testing across a range of Brocade products. (See Brocade Outlines Market Plans.)

Spokespeople from McData and Brocade refused to provide further detail on their Indian operations.

Storage software expertise in India is growing -- and so too is the interest U.S. vendors are taking in it. Wipro and competitors such as Satyam Computer Services Ltd. (NYSE: SAY), SP Software Technologies (India) Pvt. Ltd. (SPSoft), and HCL Infosystems Ltd. are among the companies benefiting from the trend.

Wipro burst on to the storage scene back in 2002 when it snagged Storage Technology Corp. (StorageTek) (NYSE: STK) as a customer. Wipro took over development of the StorageNet 6000 product, even as StorageTek layed off roughly 200 employees in the U.S. and France (see StorageTek Outsources, Lays Off).Today, Wipro's Website boasts several case studies on the firm's product development in storage virtualization, NAS, and iSCSI storage routing, among other areas. The case studies do not provide customer or product names.

Meanwhile, Pune-based SPSoft expects revenues of $1.5 million in 2005, nearly triple its 2004 take, according to a company spokesperson. SPSoft specializes in storage product development, including device management, backup, disaster recovery, and IP storage. The company does not disclose its clients because of confidentiality agreements, says the spokesperson, who did confirm that they are mostly U.S. companies.

Several storage vendors are less reticent about their ties to India, but have chosen instead to open R&D centers of their own. One prominent example: Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), which now employs 44 engineers in its Bangalore facility for its MDS 9000 switches.

"Our team in India is quite talented and extremely productive," says Umesh Mahajan, Cisco's VP of software engineering for the MDS 9000. "Some key innovations have been developed from this group, including zoning enhancements and QOS."

Two others, SAN storage provider Xiotech Corp. and startup Aarohi Inc., have also been beefing up Indian operations of late. Xiotech established a software team in Hyderabad last year and has grown it steadily since then, while Aarohi has ambitious investment plans for its site in Bangalore (see Xiotech Hires Maranti Founders and Aarohi Advances Action Plan). Others who have made similar moves in India include EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP), and Veritas Software Corp. (Nasdaq: VRTS). (See EMC to Invest $100M in India and NetApp to Open Facility in India.)Brett Mendel, Senior Analyst, Byte and Switch Insider