National Instruments is also setting up a wholly-owned subsidiary in the country with a view to putting up a call centre. "We are awaiting approval for registering the name, either as NI Systems or NI Technologies, for our fully-owned outfit. Since National Instruments Ltd (a Calcutta-based central PSU) is already a registered name with the registrar of companies, we will be forced to use another name," a top official said.

Once the board of the parent approves the proposal for a manufacturing unit in Bangalore, it would be the group's first facility outside the US. China, where the company has opened an R&D unit, is also in the race for National's production centre. The estimated investment for the unit would be in the range of $10-15 million, while the outlay for R&D centre is more than $300,000.

National Instruments is looking at the country as a major source for human resources. With the subsidiary in place, National Instruments would service its customers through a direct sales team, while less than 25 per cent of the products will be marketed through its resellers and system integrators, the official added. The market size of the computer-based measurement and automation products in the country is about $165-180 million.

The official said the stand-alone test and measurement instruments and automation systems, when integrated with computers, can be converted into high performance measurement and automation systems. To create awareness of its offerings, National Instruments has set up instrumentation labs at PSG Technical Institute, Coimbatore and Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.