Technology company Sun Microsystems is to double the size of its Irish operations with the creation of 275 software engineering jobs over the next three years.

The company, which currently employs around 250 people, says that the increase in the size of its strategic software development centre in Dublin will bring the total number of people employed in Ireland to 600.

The announcement was made in Dublin yesterday by Sun's president and chief operations officer, Mr Ed Zander.

"We're really excited about expanding our site here in Ireland," he said.

The company has recorded a 93 per cent revenue growth in Ireland over the past year to more than £65 million (€82.53 million) and opened a major extension to its software development centre at the East Point Business Park in Dublin last October.

The head of Sun's Dublin centre, Ms Paula Sager, said that the company's continuing search for engineering talent in Ireland will mean developing sites not just in East Point park, but in other areas in and around Dublin.

Mr Zander spoke of the company's greater focus on software and Internet services and said the decision to expand in Ireland represented a major part of its globalisation strategy.

"We're no longer a San Franscisco bay area company. We are a global company and our customers are global," he said.

Mr Zander said Ireland proved to be very attractive to the company, particularly given its economic resurgence, the quality of the educational system, the high numbers of people trained in technology, and the return to the Irish population of many emigrants.

Mr Zander also acknowledged the support of the Government, IDA Ireland, and the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, who he said had met with Sun executives both in Ireland and the US to discuss the company's growth here.

The strategic software centre in Dublin has been engaged in software development, software localisation and system tests. The new expansion will bring further development activities in a number of new areas.

Sun's vice president of European marketing, Mr Shanker Trivedi, said that the company is now number one in the Unix software market in Ireland, and also in the large server market. "Our goal is to become the number one IT company in Ireland, not just the number one Unix company here," he said.

Mr Trivedi also said the company planned to develop its relationships with Irish universities through investments in placement programmes and collaborative research programmes.