Toshiba Corp. plans to open a development center next month in Vietnam that will work on embedded software for consumer electronics products.

Toshiba Software Development (Vietnam) Co. Ltd. will be based in Hanoi and initially employ around 20 people but is expected to expand to about 300 employees over the next three years, Toshiba said.

At the center low-level software processes will be developed and combined with upper processes from developers in Japan to make up the embedded software that runs in many of the company's digital consumer electronics products and cell phones.

Toshiba said its choice of Vietnam as the location for the new center was partly due to the availability of skilled personnel and lower wages that can be paid in the country. Toshiba already has ties to the country and supports scholarships to Vietnam National University and Hanoi University.

The Tokyo company has software development centers in India and China and the new Vietnamese center is part of its plan to increase software development work over the medium term while not concentrating resources in any one country.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.