June 2006

BladeLogic adds India center, expands to bigger U.S. base

LEXINGTON, Mass. — BladeLogic, a developer of data center automation software, is making its first foray into India with a new research and development center in Pune. The move comes as the company expands locally into its new 31,000-square-foot headquarters.

The company said the new facility in India will help it increase its software engineering capacity while the new headquarters will allow it to accommodate its growth. The 180-employee company has 100 employees based in Lexington and expects to increase that number by over 50 percent in the next year. The new location has capacity for nearly 250 employees.

"While the bulk of our investments are in our technology and our people, due to the company's fast progress we seem to continually outgrow our existing office space," said Dev Ittycheria, president and chief executive officer of BladeLogic. The move is the company fourth since it was founded five years ago.

Ittycheria co-founded BladeLogic with Vijay Manwani, the company's senior vice president and chief technology officer.

Previously, Ittycheria was a senior vice president at Breakaway Solutions. Prior to that, he was the co-founder, president and chief executive officers of Applica, which was acquired by Breakaway in March 1999. Ittycheria held senior positions in the data communications businesses of AT&T and Teleport Communications Group. He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Rutgers University.

The company's expansion into India is a "natural evolution" said Ted Rodman, BladeLogic's public relations director. In addition to the company's two Indian co-founders, Ittycheria and Manwani, "there is a strong Indian presence in the company," said Rodman.

But for BladeLogic it is the fact that India has become a "key target market" that compelled the company to open a center there. "India is a natural market for data centers," said Vick Viren Vaishnavi, director of product marketing for BladeLogic. "A lot of Fortune 1000 companies have data centers in India that they need to manage. That's where we come in."

Before joining BladeLogic, Vaishnavi was a co-founder and principal at Rishisoft, an IT management consulting firm. Prior to that, he was a founding member at Opticom and he also worked at APRISMA Management Technologies, a subsidiary of Cabletron Systems, and was a member of the software development team at Computer Associates. Vaishnavi received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, a master's degree in computer engineering from the University of Massachusetts and a master's degree in business administration in marketing from Boston University.

BladeLogic's software enables companies to manage and organize their data center infrastructures more efficiently. Among its customers are GE Capital, Priceline.com, Merck and Co. Inc., IBM, Cisco Systems Inc., SunGard and VeriSign Inc.

Most of the company's U.S.-based customers have data centers in India, he said.

Vaishnavi said that he anticipates "huge growth" in the Indian data center market in terms of research and development facilities expanding into full business operations. "[The Indian market] is a major contributor to our Asia-Pacific business," he said.

Vaishnavi estimates that the Asia-Pacific data center market is about 10 percent of what he said is a $10 billion worldwide data center market. "It's a mushrooming market," he said.

The facility will operate as BladeLogic Software Services Pvt. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company.

According to Vaishnavi, Pune was chosen because the company didn't want the facility to "be lost in the hubbub of Bangalore." Furthermore, he added, Pune, is a "rising star in terms of location and technology pool. Pune is more of an upcoming Bangalore."

While BladeLogic does not have any India-based companies as customers yet, Vaishnavi said that the company is in discussions with some "well-recognized, leading Indian companies. To enter the India market [a company] needs to have a partnership. The direct sales model [in India] is difficult. But there is a lot of room for growth."