Cisco is set to establish a world-class Research & Development Center in Galway, with the support of IDA Ireland. Cisco subsidiary Cisco Internetworking (Ireland) Limited will be setting up the R&D center, which will develop new applications and services for its Unified Communications solutions.

Unified Communications solutions are capable of reducing communication chaos that upsets business processes by using the intelligence in the network to connect to the right person the first time, using communication mediums.

The Galway center will take forward the company’s future worldwide Research & Development mission. The center will initially employ 50 skilled graduates and the number will go up to 200 positions over the next three years.

“The Galway centre will firmly embed Cisco, the world’s leading networking company, in Ireland, where it will undertake research at the very heart of Cisco’s new growth strategy, a key part of which includes its Unified Communications business,” said Micheál Martin TD, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ireland, in a statement. “Cisco has been a major target company for IDA Ireland for quite some time and the location of this R&D centre here was achieved against strong competition. Cisco is also to investigate the opportunities for collaborative R&D with both industry and academic partners in Ireland.”

Cisco develops networking and communication technology products and services for transporting data, voice and video to customers worldwide. The products are the backbone for the communications for almost all of the world's businesses, governments and service providers.

“To remain responsive to the communications needs of our customers, we are expanding our significant investment in development around the world,” said Charlie Giancarlo, Cisco’s chief development officer. “We view Ireland as an excellent area to establish our new R&D facility in the area of Unified Communications both because of the positive business climate and because of the established talent pool.”

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Niladri Sekhar Nath is a contributing writer for TMCnet covering telecommunications, service providers and networking. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.