Oracle to boost development, marketing in India
By siliconindia staff writer   |   Wednesday, 03 March 2004, 20:30 IST
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BANGALORE: ItÂ’s India all the way for the worldÂ’s largest enterprise software maker Oracle . While the company already employs over 4,200 people across its centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad, the company is simultaneously increasing the amount of work related to Oracle Collaboration Suite, one its most recently developed offerings, reports Economic Times. According to Bill Maimone, vice-president, server platform group, Oracle, Bangalore is part of the four centres that works on this suite. He told ET that the company also has centres in California, Montreal and Beijing working on this technology alongside the Bangalore centre. By utilising this follow-the-sun model, the company saves two to three months in product development time. He, however, refused to divulge specific headcount of engineers and technical support staff associated with this product. The India development centre undertakes work related to mailing list management, news service server development and migration services and has also begun work on a real-time collaboration system. While development of the voicemail solution for this suite is currently based in California, Maimone indicated Oracle saw more potential for India as it seeks to broad base this development. OracleÂ’s expansion is not restricted to India alone. Headcount addition is expected across its other facilities too. Maimone said Oracle uses India as its base for domestic customer support as well as for other English-speaking regions based on the time differences. Oracle has also set-up its Global Finance Information System in Bangalore. This centre caters to global requirements for financial forecasting, planning and reporting for the company. Meanwhile, India continues to grow as a lucrative market for Oracle . While the global market for collaboration suites is a $7.5 billion opportunity, the company sees significant opportunities in the country. It is targeting companies in manufacturing, government and financial services sectors and already has over 560 customers since the launch of the first version in 2002. Mr Maimone said Oracle would target its large existing customer base with its latest offering. The company has 6,000 technology and 200 applications customers in the country. Oracle Collaboration Suite allows communication over several channels such as voice, email, web conferencing and wireless devices. The company sells this solution on a fixed fee basis or as a hosted product.

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