Cisco To Open China Research Center
Cisco, the world's largest maker of networking equipment
for the Internet and VoIP products, will open a research
center in Shanghai in April 2005. This makes Cisco the
latest major player to open a research center in China,
joining a roster of other major players. The new research
center is expected to hire more than 100 employees over
the next 18 months.
Cisco's main competitor in China and other major markets
is Huawei
Technologies. While western companies have been expanding
into the China market, Huawei has been expanding
overseas.
Microsoft,
Oracle,
Nokia
and Motorola
are just some of the major players which already have
a significant research presence in China. The trend to
opening research centers is China is largely founded on
the low cost and high quality of China's research engineers.
Chinese engineering graduates from the best Chinese universities
make US$600 a month when they enter the workforce.
While IP
violations by Chinese companies, and sometimes weak
enforcement have been major issues in China, US hi-tech
companies have been forced to aggressively cut their costs
because of falling hardware and software prices in international
markets. This trend, plus the promise of a major presence
in the China domestic market, has outweighted their worries
about intellectual property violations.
As this trend picks up speed in 2005, companies will
freeze their hiring outside China, and may even transfer
research positions to China as they become more comfortable
with relying on their China research employees for new
product development.
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