Both Dell and VMware are heaping affection on the booming South Asia economy today. While Dell is expanding its retail partnerships in India, VMware is adding research and development funding there.

Let's have a peek at how the two companies are cutting dependencies on the US economy to beat a looming recession:

VMware plans to significantly expand its research and development operations in India over the next two years.

During a news conference today in Bangalore, India, CEO Diane Greene said the company will spend $100m by 2010 on projects that include a new R&D facility and a doubling of its staff in India to more than 1,000 people.

VMware spent $285.9m on R&D worldwide last year. But that figure was up about 93 per cent from $148.3m in 2006.

“India is also one of our fastest growing markets and where we have increasingly important system integrator partners,” Greene said in a statement. “For these reasons, we are now substantively increasing our investment in India.”

VMware will build a 82,000-square-foot development center in Bangalore, expanding on existing R&D operations in Bangalore and Pune. The center will support new and ongoing research across the company's entire virtualization portfolio, the company said.

Dell singing 'Vande Mataram' too

Dell plans to gain a retail presence in India, where its revenues rose 60 per cent in 2007 to $700m, the company said.

"At present, we are not into retail operations in India, but that's going to change. Very, very soon you will hear about this," Dell India veep Rajan Anandan said at a news conference today. Dell currently sells its PCs in India via the internet and telephone.

Anandan also forecast the company's only Indian production plant in Tamil Nadu would reach full capacity of 400,000 units per year during the current financial quarter.

In addition, he pinned down a date for the low-cost desktops and notebooks catering to the India market that Michael Dell announced last week. Those units will be launching in the second week of April. ®

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