HYDERABAD, NOV 26: Giving a double blow to Bangalore, global computer giants Sun Microsystems and Lucent Technologies are planning to locate their proposed software development centres at the newly set up Hitec City here."Two teams from Sun Microsystems and one from Lucent Technologies visited the city this month to explore chances of setting up their software development centres here," secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Information Technology Department R chandrasekharan, told PTI here.Karnataka government has been pitching for Sun's software development centre, especially since the company's Indian subsidiary is located at Bangalore, after it lost Microsoft's development centre to Hyderabad.While the first Sun team focussed on exploring the Cityas a location for its proposed software development centre, the second team was aimed at chalking out plans on their possible participation in the recently set up Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) here.Oracle team discussed the environmentfor setting up the establishment of its software development centre in Hitec City at the time of the inauguration of IIIT here.He said both the teams had wide-ranging discussions with officers of various departments, corporations and institutions on implementation of their plans.A senior Sun official said the company had sent two teams to explore possibilities of setting up its development centres in Hyderabad and participating in the IIIT.The company's proposed Hyderabad operations would be mainly aimed at taking up information technology projects useful to laymen, he added.Sun centre would also concentrate on popularising its `Java' technology in the country and use the same in various IT projects, besides giving an impetus to manufacture of electronic items using embedded Java chips.Sun's move comes close on the heels of forming an Indian subsidiary in July last which is currently located at Bangalore.Lucent team besides discussing on setting up software development centre to positionresearch and development activities, also explored participating in a joint venture to set up a dedicated fibre optic network and offered its latest wireless technologies.It also has plans to set up a school at the IIIT, Chandrasekhran said.Other major companies interested in setting up software development centres in the Hitec City inaugurated by the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Sunday are Metamor and I2 technologies, he added.Meanwhile, transnational computer majors Autodesk and Qualcore are also in the process of setting up own schools at the just opened IIIT, Chandrasekharan said.
