Cisco to invest another $50 mn in India

Cisco, like most Silicon Valley firms in software, had 25percent of its workforce with an Indian background, he said. Emerging software applications to enable work over the Internet could be made by Indian companies, he added. Chambers said Cisco hoped to consider acquisitions in India and planned to make venture capital investments in Indian startups with the idea of acquiring them. "I’d Prefer to acquire in India where we already have development centres," he said.

Cisco predicts a worldwide shortage of two million networking professionals by 2005 and announced this week a plan to fund a chain of networking schools in India.