Bangalore, June 18 (IANS) IT major Citrix Systems will invest $200 million (Rs 8.5 billion) to expand its research and development (R&D) operations in India, a top company official said Wednesday. “The investment over the next five years in our second R&D facility in Bangalore will enable us to hire another 500 engineers in phases and ramp up our headcount to 750 by 2012,” Citrix chief financial officer David J. Henshall told reporters here.

“The expansion will equip us to focus on developing end-to-end product line,” he added.

The first R&D centre was set up here seven years ago to develop a host of applications for global enterprises across industry verticals with 200 engineers. Investment in the first facility has not been disclosed.

The $1.4-billion US-based Citrix delivers applications for networking, desktop, virtualisation, 3D graphics, multimedia and voice over IP (internet protocol). It also provides market analysis, sales and technical support, testing and quality assurance.

The India centre will develop complete product line under the trademark ‘Citrix delivery centre’ for global and local customers, apart from undertaking advance research in design, coding, functional testing, documentation, engineering, management and escalation, Henshall said.

As part of Citrix’s network of nine R&D centres worldwide, the Indian facility will be the largest post-expansion in terms of headcount, new projects and synergistic activities outside its US operations. The other research facilities are located in Australia, Britain and Japan.

Henshall said the next wave of technology required for end-to-end application delivery would be “innovative and fast-moving”.

“By offering cross training across different products and technology groups, we are investing in the next-generation of engineering talent in the Indian sub-continent,” he said.

Citrix plans to enhance the product development capabilities and consolidate its market leadership in application delivery infrastructure segment by leveraging the 24-hour development cycle and India’s talent pool.

With about 8,000 partners in 100 countries worldwide, Citrix caters to Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 100 firms, besides hundreds of small and medium enterprises.

In India, Citrix caters to about 2,000 enterprise customers across verticals such as banking and finance, telecos, manufacturing, infrastructure, and government organizations.