Indian outsourcer HCL acquires data centre in US

Indian outsourcer HCL Technologies has acquired its first data centre in the US from one of its customers. HCL actually acquired the data centre in October but delayed announcing it until this month pending the upgrade of the facility.

Indian outsourcer HCL Technologies has acquired its first data centre in the US from one of its customers, a report here said. HCL actually acquired the data centre in October but delayed announcing it until this month pending the upgrade of the facility.

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HCL also took over the data centre's staff and other operations, R. Srikrishna, senior vice president for sales for the North America business of HCL's Infrastructure Services Division, was quoted as saying by PC World.

The data centre, located in New Jersey, fits into HCL's strategy to offer some services from locations close to its customers, Srikrishna said. The data centre will in part be used to serve the unnamed customer HCL purchased it from, as well as offer services to other HCL clients.

HCL has already invested US$15 million to upgrade the 35,000-square-foot centre to support eco-friendly technologies, virtualisation, cloud computing, business continuity and mainframe management services.

HCL already has co-location arrangements with SunGard Data Systems for six other locations in the US, and will continue this arrangement, according to Srikrishna.

Customers want data centre services delivered from locations close to them, he was quoted as saying. A customer in California, for example, would prefer to have services delivered from a data centre in the state rather than from New Jersey, he added.

Although customers can save money by outsourcing IT services to India, this may not be the case with data centres, according to Srikrishna.

Setting up and running a data centre in the US is far cheaper because of India's high electricity costs, Srikrishna said. Real estate-the other major cost for a data centre-is on par and in some cases cheaper in the US than in India, he added.

Indian outsourcers are increasingly looking to put data and software development centres closer to customers, including opening ones in the US Some outsourcers also believe that hiring local staff reduces criticism in the US that Indian outsourcers are causing job losses in the US

HCL already has close to 5,000 staff in the US, and this is likely to grow, Srikrishna said. About 1,500 of the staff became part of the company after its acquisition last year of HCL is increasingly focused on delivering newer services that its customers do in-house, Srikrishna said.

HCL will continue to use its centres in India to perform work that is cheaper to produce there, he added.