HSINCHU, TAIWAN -- Accton Technology Corporation of Taiwan (TAIEX: 2345, www.accton.com), global outsourcing partner for networking and communications solutions, today announced that it has established a new Product Development Center in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, UK. Beginning with a highly-experienced staff of 18 professionals that will grow to 25 by year’s end, Accton intends to invest $15 million over the next three years to reinforce this R&D arm that will leverage the best of Western product development with Eastern design, manufacturing and test skills.

Accton’s new UK-based R&D group’s first goal is to develop a product suite in the mid-range Layer 3 Ethernet chassis switch market targeted to the medium enterprise data center and enterprise edge distribution market. The product set will deliver low cost, high density copper Gigabit Ethernet ports to client systems and feature 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks to the network core.

All of the team have recently joined from a leading tier-one LAN vendor’s R&D center based in England. “We’re pleased to have the opportunity to establish a UK-based R&D group with the depth and breadth of experience that this team brings,” said Mark Graham, Accton’s VP and General Manager for North America. “They bring highly valued and relevant experience not only from their past positions with a tier-one LAN vendor, but as Accton customers, as well. This is a fantastic blend of focused design experience and clear perspective on our markets”

The new Accton UK R&D group is being led by Mark Wingrove and Kevin O’Brien, each of whom has more than 15 years experience in Networking product development and ODM operations. “This newly-established group is formed using a handpicked team of engineers with a wealth of experience in the Networking Industry. Reversing a trend of outsourcing to the Far East; Accton sees the need to create worldwide centers of excellence to best capitalize on the global nature of today’s high tech industry allowing them to remain competitive across the full range of products and markets in which they compete,” said Ož ?Brien.

“This new organization allows Accton to blend the best of a tier one vendor’s New Product Introduction practice with the best of Far Eastern engineering and manufacturing to produce a world-class Original Design and Manufacturing (ODM) capability,” added Wingrove. “And, it brings Accton’s customers far more sophisticated products than previously possible, allowing those customers to more narrowly focus their internal engineering teams in areas that provide differentiation and higher value-add. This is particularly important for those companies that wish to aggressively grow their market position with substantially smaller internal engineering resources than three to four years ago.”

Accton Technology Corp.