Company plans to add 350 development staff in Bangalore as soon as possible Enterprise infrastructure software vendor BEA Systems plans to make India its worldwide research and development (R&D) hub, to take advantage of the highly skilled staff available in the country.The company plans to have about 550 development staff in Bangalore as soon as possible, Alfred Chuang, BEA’s chairman and chief executive officer, told reporters Thursday in Bangalore. The company has 205 development staff in the city today, and about 70 doing support work.BEA, of San Jose, California, has moved its development facility in Bangalore to a new 60,000 square feet facility, ahead of the expansion. Chuang did not give a time frame for the expansion. After, the Bangalore development center will be the company’s largest worldwide. Besides development operations in the US and India, BEA also has development centers in Sweden, Argentina, China, and Korea.In the last two years, the company has expanded its R&D team worldwide to about 1100 staff from 420, Chuang said. “ We are not expanding in India because of the lower cost of staff here, but because we can get some real smart people here,” he said. The company will hire both experienced staff and campus recruits.Staff at the Bangalore center are working on development of BEA’s WebLogic and AquaLogic products, with a focus on applications in the RFID (radio frequency ID) and telecom markets, Chuang said. Technology Industry