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Microsoft doubles Indian developers

Staff, CNETAsia CNETAsia

Published: 03 Oct 2003 09:30 BST

Software giant Microsoft will double the number of developers in India over the next five years and spend $100m (£60m) beefing up operations there.

The company is already one of the largest offshore operators in India: up to a quarter of the $8bn spent on offshoring in the country comes from Microsoft alone.

According to a Times of India report, there are today around 3,000 companies and over 250,000 developers in the country contracted to the US-based Microsoft.

Simon Witts, a Microsoft corporate vice president said as more multinational IT companies migrated operations to India, his company too would grow its presence in order to service them, said the report.

As for the unhappiness in the US over the movement of jobs to offshore sites like India, Witts was quoted as saying that "no one can have protective policies for businesses which are global in nature. Work should be done where skills are available."