Dell to spend $700mn on R&D, sum alloted for India undisclosed

Renowned PC maker, Dell, will be spending more than $700 million for research and development this year. Reportedly, the company also announced converting of its Research and Development Centre here into a Centre of Excellence in Networking for Dell. This move is to push "sales in the enterprise business," revealed a company official. However, the company is mum about the figure that will be spent for research and development in India.

Dell to invest in R&D

Dell Networking, Vice-President and General Manager Dario Zamarian said, “Globally, there is now a $ 7 billion opportunity in the data centre market and a total of $ 20 billion in networking. With the integration of Force10 into Dell, we have expanded the market.” India takes the fourth position for Dell data centre business after Japan, China and Singapore in the Asian region. The data centre market in India is valued at $ 200 to $300 million.

Dell Networking, Research and Development, Executive Director and Center-Head, Sreedhara Narayanaswamy added that Chennai has become an R&D hub for Dell's networking business after they acquired Force10 networks in August 2011. The Chennai Development centre will help enhance the company's expertise in routing, switching, network operating system, network management and reference architecture. In fact, it is the third centre for Dell after data centres at Texas and San Jose. "There is no overlap. We do it as part of a team," Zamarian said, adding that the Chennai centre would focus on high-end design and development of Force10 networking switches and routers, in collaboration with the company's San Jose Development Centre.

In May this year, Dell announced that it has completed its acquisition of Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing. Wyse’s capabilities along with Dell’s existing desktop virtualization offerings position the company as the leader in desktop virtualization, enabling it to offer true end-to-end IT solutions for customers and partners. The Dell Wyse portfolio with current Dell desktop virtualization offerings, leading data center products, such as servers and storage, and Dell’s services division, provides customers and partners with a single vendor that can match the full range of their cloud computing and desktop virtualization needs. Dell has made significant strategic investments over the past three years to expand its enterprise technology and services capabilities.

Last year companies like Facebook, Apple and Google had received some flak from Greenpeace over data centres. Soon after that, Facebook announced that it is working with Greenpeace towards greener data centres. Recently, Apple announced plans to power its main U.S. data center entirely with renewable energy by the end of this year, taking steps to address longstanding environmental concerns about the rapid expansion of high-consuming computer server farms. The maker of the iPhone and iPad said on Thursday it was to buy equipment from SunPower Corp, Bloom Energy for two solar installations to be built for Maiden, NC, center near its core data center.

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