US-based VMware, which makes virtualization software, said India’s large base of desktop users and a growing mobile phone market made it an important country for its new suite of products.
Announced at its annual VMworld conference this week, the company’s products and initiatives were aimed at moving beyond its core focus of server virtualization, a market which has seen much saturation in the past few years. “Unlike the rest of the world, there are still a lot of desktops in India. We see that as a huge opportunity,” said Carl Eschenbach, chief operating officer, referring to its end-user computing product that helps extend the office environment to PCs and mobile phones.
Founded in 1998, the company was one of the early movers in the server virtualization space, which helps companies makes efficient use of computing resources and reduces costs.
With offices in Bangalore and Pune, India is VMware’s secondlargest operation after its headquarters in California. A quarter of its top executives are Indian. Last year, the company said it will invest $500 million over three years to expand operations in the country. The National Informatics Centre, which runs large data centres for e-governance initiatives, also uses VMware products.
