Mumbai: Azul Systems, Inc, a privately-funded California- based technology company speacialising in data center infrastructure, has opened a software design and development centre in Bangalore. The centre is headed by Stephen DeWitt, former president and CEO of Cobalt Networks, who is assisted by a senior team of business and engineering team from leading networking, silicon and system vendors.

The Bangalore centre will allow Azul Systems to scale its design engineering efforts by leveraging 24x7 design, support and test cycles and exponentially increase quality. "By expanding our software development organization to Bangalore, India, we continue to attract the brightest engineering minds across the globe. This will allow us to round out our product line while building significant leverage into our engineering efforts," said Stephen DeWitt, Azul Systems President and CEO.

To ensure seamless navigation of the local, cultural, HR and legal issues unique to India, Azul has a partnership arrangement with Tavant Technologies, a leading provider of collaborative commerce, strategic IT solutions and facilitator of collaboration between manufacturers and financial services businesses,. "We are pleased to partner with Azul in its efforts to expand its business into India," said Ashish Gupta, Vice President, Tavant Technologies. "We believe the company's technology is clearly on the forefront of innovation and we look forward to their success in," he added.

At the annual 2003 Datacenter Ventures conference, VentureWire, a leading publication focused on emerging companies, recognized Azul Systems as "Investors Choice" - one of the top ten datacenter ventures most likely to succeed.