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Redmond II

Chief Minister Naidu can exhale. Microsoft's first overseas development centre will be set up in Hyderabad

A staff writer in Bombay

Microsoft today announced that it will set up its first overseas development centre at Hyderabad.

T O D A Y

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The centre, will start off with 25 personnel and is expected to expand to 500 workers by 2000 and is expected to focus on Internet-related technologies. But most of the development will still continue to be done in the US, Microsoft sources said.

While the centre will supervised by S Somasegar of the Windows NT group from Redmond, the Indian operations will be conducted by Srini Koppolu, general manager, Microsoft.

The step was taken nearly a year after Microsoft supremo Bill Gates visited India. And Hyderabad was chosen despite heavy pressure from lobbies in Madras, Bangalore, and other cities across the world. Bill Gates had stated in the past that his company was planning to set up centres abroad due to the acute shortage of software professionals.

"This will enable us to leverage the strong engineering talent available in India to strengthen our overall development efforts and to meet the increasing needs of our customers," said Moshe Dunie, vice president, Windows operating system division.

Already Microsoft teams have been in the city to lay the groundwork for the development centre. Beside other factors, Microsoft wanted to ensure that its professionals would have a good quality of life, to ensure they did not quit the company. So the teams essentially considered the facilities available for families, including houses, schools, pollution, transport etc.

Microsoft has become the second big software major to settle in Hyderabad, the first being the important, but smaller, Baan NV of the Netherlands, which stepped up operations, for which purpose it recently acquired 20 acres of land in Hyderabad.

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