The Hindu Business Line : Adobe comes to Bangalore

Brand Bangalore, plush with diverse and experienced talent, still continues to be the preferred destination for global giants despite severe cynicism over its infrastructure.

The latest to hop onto the "Brand Bangalore" bandwagon is publishing software major Adobe. It follows those who have announced their entry plans recently such as Cisco, Royal Dutch Shell, Apple Computers, Sandisk among others.

The Chief Executive Officer of Adobe Systems Inc, Mr Bruce Chizen, told Business Line on Wednesday that his company would set up a 1.5-lakh sq ft research and development (R&D) campus in Bangalore over 12-18 months. The 500-seat facility would be the company's second in India after Noida, where it currently employs some 600 people.

Foothold in tech arena

The acquisition of Macromedia last quarter has helped Adobe to get a foothold into Bangalore's technology arena as the former has a 150 people R&D centre here. "We are on the look-out for land for the proposed campus," Mr Chizen said, adding investments in Bangalore would be part of the $200 million that was committed to India earlier this week.

Terming the quality of Bangalore talent as "outstanding," Mr Chizen rued that the company has yet been unable to attract and leverage enough talent from the city. "With the proposed campus, we think Adobe could become as significant in Bangalore as we are in Noida today," he said.

Further, Mr Chizen said both the Indian R&D centres would be working on Adobe's future products right from scratch going forward. "We look to innovation in Bangalore and Noida centres for the new products," he said without divulging any details.

To hike headcount

At present, over 25 per cent of the 2,400-strong R&D team of Adobe is located in India. The company expects to increase the Bangalore R&D headcount to over 250 in a year, he said.

Since its entry into India way back in the late ninetees, Adobe has focussed carrying out high-end product research in the country.

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