Electronics for Imaging, the US-based world leader in imaging solutions for network printing, is eyeing India as a major hub for its Asia-Pacific operations.

As part of its initiatives towards the long-term objectives, the $350-million firm has opened its Indian research and development centre in Bangalore, the first and largest outside the US, to design and develop new products and technologies.

Having acquired Unimobile, a wireless messaging company, on a cash-and-stock deal to the tune of $1.5 million last year, EFI will facilitate its customers in the Asia-Pacific region and Middle East to extensively use mobile devices and Internet technologies for increasing their operational efficiency and enhancing productivity.

"India is becoming important to our global strategic plans. The R&D centre in Bangalore will drive our design capabilities, innovation, and product development by leveraging upon the best engineering workforce and cost-effective testing facilities available here," EFI CEO Guy Gecht told rediff.com on Thursday.

With majority of the company's global customers located in the Asia-Pacific region and doing good business in the sub-continent, EFI will set up a major sales and marketing force in India to extend the service support and deploy new solutions.

The centre's employee strength will be ramped up to 100 from 40 by this year-end. The ramp-up will also enable the company to serve the needs of its customers in the region on real-time basis.

"Apart from quality certification for product services, we intend to roll out a partner program by October to introduce the multi-model delivery of printing from text, fax, data, and voice, using mobile devices and the Internet," the Israeli-born Gecht stated.

In order to build its Indian operations into a major hub in the region, the Silicon Valley firm also plans to relocate some of its key personnel, including design and development teams to Bangalore from its US facility at Foster City, CA, in the next 18 months.

Ushering in the concept of 'print anytime, anywhere' with its PrintMe Networks, EFI revolutionised imaging and printing services with its flagship product Fiery, a color server that turned ordinary copier machines into powerful networked digital printers.

Partnering with every major printing manufacturer, including world leaders such as HP, IBM, Canon, and Xerox, EFI has set an industry standard for digital printing and enabled the transition from analog.

"We have so far shipped one million Fierys during the last one decade to our worldwide customers through directly or our global OEM partners.

"With the Asia-Pacific region posting faster growth rates than the rest of the world of late, we realised the importance of the region, and the role India can play in the coming years, with its huge human and capital resources," Gecht affirmed.

EFI's country head Atul Saran said the potential for digital printing in the sub-continent was unfolding with the increasing use of the Internet and mobile devices by the service industry, especially, banking, insurance, healthcare, and education.

"EFI's core technology offers powerful management tools, seamless networking, and high fidelity color for higher productivity and cost efficiency.

"Our products support a range of printers, copiers, other office automation systems and mobile devices. Our imaging solutions such as PrintMe enables anywhere, anytime printing through mobile or Internet," Saran disclosed.

According to EFI's Unimobile vice-president V Bhandarkar, businesses are continually looking to provide their employees, customers, and partners with additional points of interaction for their services.

Seamless anywhere, any time and any device communication increases service value and improve response-time for decision making.

Using wireless technology, enterprises can now provide global access and transaction capabilities to their own business applications on mobile devices.