Cisco Systems Inc has decided to put on hold plans to hire engineers globally. It will instead outsource its development requirements to Indian software companies.

India is the only country where Cisco outsources software and product development work.

The company outsources its software and product development requirements to Infosys Technologies, Wipro and HCL Technologies and has mandated them to hire more for Cisco's development work.

"Cisco is not hiring worldwide. We will outsource more software services and product development work to companies in India," S Devarajan, vice-president, Cisco Systems India, told Business Standard.

Cisco, the world's leading networking technology company, has also decided to outsource the company's internal business process outsourcing operations to Indian companies.

"We are moving some part of our internal BPO operations also to India," Devarajan said. The company outsources its BPO requirement to Progeon, the BPO subsidiary of Infosys Technologies.

Cisco, which reached a $100 billion market capitalisation in the shortest time in corporate history, took the decision to freeze hiring after the Internet meltdown.

Cisco employs about 2,300 people in India, both in its own research and development centre in Bangalore and with its three partners.

Of these, close to 1,600 engineers are employed with partners while the rest are in its centres. According to Devarajan, the partners of the company had added about 500 people for Cisco.

"Our Indian partners added about 500 people last year for Cisco-related jobs," he said.

Cisco will continue to move more work to its Indian partners. "We are not hiring worldwide and we are developing new technologies. This means that our partners will have to grow. It is tough to put a number on the projections now. Our partners are hiring," Devarajan said.

"We have developed products completely out of India and it will happen more often now," he said,  adding the company had filed about 50 patents from India.

Cisco established its Indian operations in 1995 and has offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata and a large software R&D facility -- Cisco Global Development Centre -- in Bangalore.