A military and government technology contractor with annual revenues of US$4.8 billion plans to use a new Melbourne facility as a launchpad for its Asia Pacific business.
Exelis has built a "state of the art" R&D and testing facility in Melbourne, which opened its doors on Monday. While managing director of C4i for Exelis, Peter Harrison, wouldn't reveal how much money has been spent on the facility, he said the company had invested "heavily".
The Australian expansion follows Exelis' 2013 purchase of Melbourne company C4i from Longreach Group Limited for US$16.8 million.
C4i supplies a networked IP communications technology used at 27 airports by Air Services Australia, and has systems deployed in 30 countries.
The company has approximately 50 staff in Australia, but could now double that number, said Harrison.
He said the company deploys its own technology as well as integrating the product with third-party systems. He said C4i's technology integrates with a "myriad" of vendors' products, including the likes of Cisco, Nortel, Avaya and NEC.
Harrison described the company as a "little bit left of centre of the mainstream IT world", but added that he sees the industry moving from very bespoke systems to more open standard application that are highly dependent on IT infrastructure.
"I think there's going to be significant overlap going forward," he said. "The applications will still be very unique, but the infrastructure that makes them work will be more common."
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