News
'Pakistan's economy growing at fast pace'
MUMBAI Jan 11 : Pakistan's economy is growing at a very fast pace, and the number of Oracle licences is increasing.
This was stated here Geographies Oracle Corporation, Asia Pacific Division Senior Vice President Keith Budge at a press briefing in connection with the two-day (January 10 and 11) India's mega event of 'Oracle Open World'.
The briefing was also attended by Oracle President Charles Phillips, who had flown in from California a day earlier. Also accompanying him were Executive Vice President, Oracle Asia Pacific, Derek Williams, and Managing Director, Oracle India, Krishan Dhawan.
Budge said: "The (Pakistan) economy is not only performing well, but even higher than Philippines economy." "It's actually a high growth market," he added.
At the press briefing, Oracle's President Charles Phillips announced that the company was ramping up the expansion of its operations in India, which currently employs more than 8,600 people across six cities, supporting local, regional and global company initiatives.
In the past five years, Oracle invested nearly $2 billion in India to support company initiatives, such as its development centres, in-kind education donations, investments in companies like i-flex, and commitment to employees.
Under the new expansion plans, Oracle is scheduled to increase its presence in nine non-metro cities, including Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Pune and Vishakhapatnam.
Oracle expects to increase its total headcount in India to 10,000 over the next eight months.
"We have been in India for more than 19 years, and the infrastructure we have put in place now enables us to go beyond the metro cities and into the cities that are the up-and-coming economic engines of India," said Charles.
"The fast rate of development, high literacy rates, and availability of IT skills in each of these cities represent an untapped reservoir of future economic wealth for India. We want to help make that happen."
Oracle first entered India in 1987 through distributorship with a partner. After setting up its first liaison office in 1991, Oracle was one of the first software companies to establish 'India Development Centre' (IDC) in 1994. The IDC is Oracle's largest research and development centre outside the United States and carries out cutting-edge development work across the entire Oracle product family for the global market.
Oracle has more than 6,000 database and middleware customers and 400 application customers in India.
Oracle also plans to increase its partner network to support its reach across all 15 cities and industry segments, especially within the small and medium-sized enterprise market.
Oracle currently has 275 partners in India, adding 75 in 2005. Almost 80 percent of Oracle's licence revenue in India is generated through partners.
Oracle plans to increase its headcount in India to more than 10,000 over the next eight months. These additional resources will be in the areas of sales and marketing, product development, consulting, product support and services. Oracle in India employs 17 percent of Oracle's total world-wide staff of 51,000.
"India is one of the two fastest growing markets for Oracle in the Asia-Pacific region," said Oracle Asia Pacific Executive Vice President Derek Williams. "With the present expansion plans, we hope to grow the market reach for Oracle exponentially and accelerate Oracle's growth in India," he added.
According to analyst firm IDC, information technology (IT) spending among Indian organisations was projected to reach over $9 billion by the end of 2005, and over $17 billion by the end of 2009.
"While India continues to be a large global product development and services centre for Oracle, it is maturing as a market for adoption of the latest technology and applications products," said Oracle India Managing Director Krishan Dhawan.
"We are the undisputed leader in the database space. We are growing rapidly in middleware applications and have leadership in key industry segments including Government, FSI and Telecom industries," he added.
Oracle has the most comprehensive menu of products and services for organisations of all sizes, needs, and requirements.
Oracle offers four database versions, which range from its free version Oracle Database 10g Express Edition, all the way up to its enterprise edition, Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition.
Its database software supports 13 Indian languages. Its applications offerings give customers an unequalled level of choice in the market and include the Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft product lines.
"The non-metro cities in India will have an unprecedented level of choice in enterprise software, which is critical to its emerging companies," Dhawan added.
"We are already working with companies in the non-metro cities, but now feel it necessary to provide them on-the-ground support from Oracle and its partners. We strongly believe these emerging companies will form the backbone of India's future economic growth and as such will need world-class support and services to manage their business and IT infrastructure," he said.
"Oracle's Lifetime Support Policy is an example of how customers not only have the best products to run their business, they also enjoy unrivalled product support and rights to future releases to evolve their systems and stay competitive in this dynamic marketplace," Dhawan added.