Dell said Monday it plans to add 5,000 jobs in India over the next two years, bringing its work force in the country to 15,000.
The computer maker is also looking to set up a manufacturing center in India, a move that could help boost the sale of Dell computers there. The company will hire 700 to 1,000 workers for a new call center in Gurgaon, a satellite town of the capital, New Delhi, said CEO Kevin Rollins. The new call center, the company's fourth in India, will open in April, he said.
The other new hires will staff call centers in the cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad in southern India and Mohali in the northern state of Punjab. Also this year, the company plans to double the staff at its product testing center in Bangalore, which currently employs 300 engineers, Rollins said.
Rollins said previously that Dell would make India a hub for its software development and back-office work. The company currently employs about 10,000 people there.
Scores of Western companies have been cutting costs by shifting software development, engineering design and routine office functions to countries such as India, where English-speaking workers are plentiful and wages are low.
Sell phones: Sprint Nextel, the No. 3 U.S. mobile service, said on Monday it sued Florida company All Star Investigations to protect the privacy of Sprint's wireless customers, alleging that the company's websites fraudulently obtain and sell phone call records.
Sprint is also suing another Florida firm, 1st Source Information Specialists, with similar allegations.
Services offering to sell call records have come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks with lawsuits from mobile providers and state authorities and a probe by telephone regulators.
Sprint said All Star is believed to own websites including detectivesusa.com, miamiprotection.com and privatedectivesusa.com. which it says obtain phone records for its wireless customers through misrepresentation and deceit.
A person answering the phone number listed on All Star's website said the company carries out basic investigations such as criminal background checks and does not sell call records.
"We don't do that service," said Anthony Gonzalez, who identified himself as company manager.
If you can't beat 'em....: Warner Bros. said on Monday it would soon begin selling movies and television shows in Germany, Austria and Switzerland using a peer-to-peer network, embracing the very technology that has rattled the entertainment industry.
Starting in March, the new service called In2Movies will allow paying consumers to download a limited selection of Warner Bros. films and TV programs, including Batman Begins and The O.C., from central servers and from other users who have the desired files.
Warner Bros. said the German-language markets were only a first step and it soon plans to widen the use of P2P networks.
Films will be made available to registered users of the In2Movies service on the same day they are released on DVD in the German language. In addition to the studio's blockbusters, In2Movies plans to sell local programming and material supplied by third parties.
