Bangalore, Sep 23 (IANS) Dell Inc., the $57 billion leading IT products major, would begin shipping its servers and desktops with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) processors to India from the fourth quarter of this year, a top company official said here Friday.

"Though Intel processors are important to us, we give what our customers want. Of late, there has been a growing demand for our products with AMD processors. We have already started selling them in the US.

"As part of our global marketing strategy, we will start shipping our servers and desktops with AMD processors to the subcontinent from Q4 of this year," Dell India vice-president Rajan Anandan told reporters here.

Dell has also started deploying Intel's dual core processors in its products for offering enhanced performance with lower power consumption.

The upgraded versions are being showcased for direct marketing to its existing and new customers worldwide.

"While products are designed at Austin in Texas, software for the entire range of servers, storage and related products is developed at our research and development centre in India. Servers and desktops for the Indian market are shipped from Malayasia," Anandan said.

With Dell deciding to set up a manufacturing facility near Chennai to roll out initially desktops and subsequently notebooks and servers, the company hopes to lower the price points for the Indian market as it will be saving on shipping costs.

"The production plant, being set up at Sriperambudur with an upfront investment of $30 million, will have an installed capacity of 400,000 units per annum. We will start rolling out desktops initially and scale up the range when we reach critical sales volume in notebooks and servers," he stated.

Dell plans to employ about 1,100 people to operate the high-tech plant and commence production from the first-half of 2007.