John Ribeiro

Intel Corp. is expanding its facilities in Bangalore to include a new campus that will cost US$41 million, the company said Monday.

Outsourcing of IT services and back-end business processes to low-cost countries like India, the Philippines and Ghana is seen as a big money-saver in corporate boardrooms in the U.S. and Europe. But laid-off workers, hit by recession, look at it differently: Offshore outsourcing is moving jobs outside their countries, and they are pushing policy-makers to put on the brakes.

Exult Inc., a provider of human resources (HR) business process outsourcing (BPO) services, will increase the headcount at its BPO subsidiary in India to over 500 by the end of next year, from the current 70, according to an executive of the company. The Irvine, California, company also outsources technology development for its in-house requirement to two Indian software companies.

Don't look in Bangalore for boarded-up offices and laid-off chief executive officers of technology companies working as gas station attendants. The city has done relatively well for itself during the downturn, as multinational companies looking for low-cost, skilled manpower increased their outsourcing to Bangalore or expanded their own research and development facilities in the city.

The Asia-Pacific region is witnessing a surge in deployment of wireless LAN, with hardware shipments and revenue generated from the new gear surging, according to a report on the WLAN market in the region by Frost & Sullivan Inc.

Microsoft Corp. is in talks with the Indian government to offer a shared source license of Windows, company sources said Friday.

India is emerging as a chip-design powerhouse, according to Tom Engibous, chairman, chief executive officer, and president of Dallas-based semiconductor maker, Texas Instruments Inc.

Intel Corp. plans a major expansion of its research and development efforts in India and will increase the number of employees it has here.