Sun Micro to Grow 4 Sites Outside U.S.

Sun Microsystems Inc. said Friday that it was expanding four of its engineering facilities outside the United States to save on costs, although the computer and software maker has no plans to cut additional jobs at its Silicon Valley hub.

The four research and development centers are in the Indian city of Bangalore, Beijing, Russia’s St. Petersburg and the Czech Republic capital, Prague.

“We are over-invested in high-cost geographies like the U.S., and underinvested in low-cost geographies like India,” said Stephen Pelletier, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company’s senior vice president of global engineering.

Pelletier said the company would not lay off programmers in the United States -- but wouldn’t hire many, either.

“We are not pulling out,” he said. “We are going to have a big presence in the Silicon Valley for a long time.”

The ability to quickly hire a large number of programmers in India and other low-cost locations justified the company’s plan to consolidate its worldwide research staff in those places, Pelletier said.

The company has reduced its staff to about 30,000, from roughly 43,000 four years ago.

However, it has cash reserves of $7.5 billion -- enough for expansion.

Sun Microsystems employs nearly 1,000 software engineers at its Bangalore center -- a number that will double in two years, Pelletier said.

The other three centers will see similar growth in employee numbers, he said, without giving details.