French co.'s focus on civil aviation

New Delhi: With Israeli companies giving a tough competition and with a lucrative deal for electronic systems integration and other projects for Indian naval submarines in the bag, the French company Thales is planning to focus more on the civilian side in India.
Thales has already set up a small repair and overhaul centre for equipment supplied to the defence forces and the civilian sector. It is now "reassessing'' the current framework of Thales teaming up with four other equipment suppliers to provide spares and supplies to customers.
"We are looking at a bigger centre that will look after avionics and electronic controls and cockpit avionics of several airlines including Indian, Jet, Indigo, Spice and Deccan. We are completely reassessing the plans,'' Francois Dupont, the company's India Country Manager, said.
Thales had also announced plans for a software centre in Chennai that will employ up to 3,000 engineers and with India no longer a cheap place to produce software, the company would be planning to develop middleware.
02/01/07 Sandeep Dikshit/The Hindu

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