PDF: 2962 pages, 5.2 MB - Bay Area Council Economic Institute

Global Reach
Also in 2007, it introduced Google News in Hindi and a Hindi transliteration feature in its
Blogger web publishing service that converts text typed on an English keyboard into phonetically
equivalent Hindi script. Other expansions:
• Google Local Business Centre and Local Search, an online local yellow pages offering
free restaurant, store, hotel, and other listings to businesses and providing easily accessible
local information; and
• Google India Labs, one of seven such labs worldwide that showcase innovations developed
at various centers and offer a platform for Indians to beta test new features and
provide feedback.
And in mid-2007, Google signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of
Andhra Pradesh to expand its Hyderabad center on 20 acres on the city outskirts at Kokapet.
Over time the existing support facility has grown to include engineering and back office functions,
with a workforce of nearly 1,100. The new center will have a capacity of 4,000 employees.
Like other U.S. technology companies, Google finds hiring managers to be a challenge. The
company needs engineers with core skills (most with masters and PhDs), a product mindset
(which is different from a service mindset), and the ability to work in a non-hierarchical environment.
To meet these requirements, Google engineers are given the opportunity to earn an
MS degree at Stanford, primarily through distance learning, and to travel frequently to the U.S.
The interaction, Google finds, both builds skills and aids retention.
Juniper Networks was founded in 1996 by Pradeep Sindhu, an IIT-Kanpur graduate
with master’s and doctoral degrees in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University.
VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers provided $200,000 in initial funding. Sindhu
had previously worked as a principal scientist and distinguished engineer at Xerox's Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). His work on design tools for VLSI and high-speed interconnects for
shared-memory multiprocessors led to commercial development of Sun Microsystems' first highperformance
multiprocessor system family.
Juniper first opened a sales office in Delhi in July 2000, followed by Mumbai and Bangalore offices
and a Delhi proof of concept center in 2001. Partners at the time included Nortel, Ericsson,
and Indian IT provider Apara Enterprise Solutions, among others. In 2003, Juniper opened a
Bangalore technical center with a staff of 27 to provide software testing and development support
for its growing India customer base. In August 2004, the firm expanded its training and certification
program, certifying Hyderabad training firm Isilica Networks India as a partner. At the
same time, Juniper folded a Hyderabad R&D center—part of its $4 billion acquisition of
Sunnyvale network security firm NetScreen Technologies—into its larger Bangalore facility.
Combined India professional staff at the time was 125.
Early customers were state-owned telecom provider BNSL and international data carrier Data
Access, followed by BSES Telecom, Dishnet DSL and HCL Infinet. More recently Juniper has
signed government network deals with Indian Railways and with two Indian states, Himachal
Pradesh and Bihar. It has partnered with Wipro Infotech to market and implement solutions that
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