Sun Microsystems Inc , which makes network computers and related software, said on Friday it would double the number of staff at its Indian engineering centre to 2,000 over the next two to three years. Officials of US-based Sun, which spends an annual $1.9 billion on research and development, said they would expand engineering centres in Russia, China, the Czech Republic and India, while holding back growth in the United States. Stephen Pelletier, senior vice-president of global engineering at Sun, told a news conference that India and China were important both for new software development and their high-growth economies that yielded big customers.

The US engineering team is still the biggest for Sun, but the company's current plans are to grow the R&D centres in Bangalore, Beijing, St. Petersburg and Prague, Pelletier said. The Beijing centre is about half the size of the Indian one, which has grown five-fold from 200 staff about three years ago. Officials did not give staff sizes for the other centres.

India's fast-growing mobile telephone service and banking industries were also significant customers for Sun, and they in turn were driving demand for innovations, Pelletier said.

Copyright Reuters, 2005