Dell on 13 September 2011 declared its acquisition of U.S.-based $200 million revenue networking company Force 10 Networks. Force10 Network's Chennai research and development team is to be ramped up to play a crucial part for Dell's networking business. Force10 at present had 270 people in the Chennai R&D team.The global networking market was pegged at $6 billion and this was expected to grow to $16 billion by 2016.
India is believed to be playing a strategic part in driving Dell's transformation globally into a solutions and services enterprise. Chennai was a crucial growth engine from three view-points such as manufacturing, services and R&D. With the acquisition of Perot Systems, Chennai was a key centre for Dell Services and with the takeover of Force10, the Chennai R&D team would make foray into networking.
The Force 10 Networks acquisition is expected to result in manufacturing of some networking products at Dell's factory in Chennai. Apart from serving the domestic market, Dell's Chennai unit serves as an export base for the $1.4-billion company, catering mainly to the Middle East markets.