EMC to add 600 jobs in India

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff February 26, 2005

Data storage company EMC Corp., riding a wave of surging demand in Asia, will pour an additional $150 million into its facility in Bangalore, India's key high-tech center.

EMC's chief financial officer Bill Teuber, speaking during a visit to New Delhi, said the money would be invested over the next two years, along with a previously revealed infusion of $100 million. ''We are very pleased with the progress in India in terms of infrastructure and see a bright future," he said.

EMC employs 400 workers in Bangalore; the company plans to boost that number to 1,000. But EMC spokeswoman Anne Pace said the company isn't shifting jobs from high-wage America to low-wage India. ''This is all about growth," Pace said. ''Any jobs being created in India right now are not being created at the expense of the US. We continue to hire in the US. We continue to hire in Mbuttachusetts."

Still, some of the 600 new workers will handle service and support activities for EMC's US customers. Pace said this will enhance the company's ability to provide 24-hour customer support by giving EMC a service facility that will run at full strength during the hours when most Americans are asleep.

Even so, the market for data storage gear in India itself is growing fast. ''Obviously there's more growth potential there, because they are so undeveloped," said Stephen Minton, vice president of the worldwide information technology markets group at research company IDC Corp. in Framingham.

Minton said that Indian demand for storage gear was climbing 10 percent per year. So a strong EMC presence in the country meshes with the company's goal to derive half of its revenues from outside the United States, compared with 42 percent today.

But even though India's demand for storage is surging, it begins from a narrow base. IDC estimates that in 2004, India spent only $151 million on the kinds of disk storage systems sold by EMC, compared with $8.8 billion in US sales.

That's why Ray Paquet, storage analyst at research firm Gartner Inc., believes EMC's Indian expansion isn't the only reason for the investment. Paquet said India's data storage market is too small to justify an infusion of 600 more workers. He believes EMC is following the industry trend of moving a significant number of jobs to India, where wages for highly trained computer experts workers are much lower than in the United States.