Bangalore: Motorola to Double its Headcount in the City Core Network

Bangalore, Jul 20: Motorola Inc plans to double the headcount of its Core Network Division in India to over 500 even as it seeks to go in for vendor rationalisation over the next 12-18 months

The Core Networks Division, based in Bangalore, is working on Motorola Soft Switch (MSS), IP Multimedia Subsystem, push-to-talk over cellular and seamless mobility.

Michael Krutz, Vice-President, Motorola's Core Network Division, said his division expects to double its India headcount to 500 over the next 12-18 months. Motorola currently has some 250 engineers working for its core network division in Bangalore and over 150 engineers at its five outsourced software development partners.

"India will be the primary development centre for all of our core products," Krutz said, adding that the company started moving work to the Bangalore centre two years ago. "As we move more development work here, we expect to increase our headcount," he said.

The development centre in Bangalore accounts for almost 80-85 per cent of the software that goes with Motorola's core network products. The company recently set up a new facility that can accommodate about 650 people. The Bangalore centre is responsible for the entire lifecycle of core network products that include systems engineering, software development, product testing and systems testing, he said.

Motorola expects each of its outsourcing partners to focus on specific areas such GSM, CDMA and push-to-talk cellular going forward. The company plans to retain some development work in the US and Spain to support customers in North America and Europe respectively, he said. Motorola also expects to double the number of engineers working with its partners over the next 12-18 months, he said. The core networks division accounts for over 10 per cent of the Motorola's total workforce of 2,100 in India.