Oracle plans to enter non-metros

Ahmedabad, Coiambatore, Vizag on radar; to up headcount to 10,000.

Software major Oracle is planning to expand its operation from six metros to 15 non-metro cities in India and increase its workforce in the country from 8,600 to 10,000 over the next eight months.

Announcing this at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in Mumbai today, Oracle President Charles Phillips said, "India will continue to be very important for us. We rely on India for a lot of innovation. There's not a single line of Oracle business that does not have a presence in India." India accounts for 17 per cent of Oracle's worldwide staff.

The company also announced that it was in the process of building "a suite of applications" called "Fusion Applications" to lower the cost of computing.

"Customers the world over are moving away from disparate applications to standard ones. We will fuse the best of applications to build this suite," said Phillips in his keynote address.

Oracle has already invested nearly $2 billion in India over the last five years to support its development centres and in companies like i-flex (where it owns a 41 per cent stake).

"The next wave of opportunity," said Derek William, EVP, Asia-Pacific, Oracle, "is the rural sector, small and medium businesses (SMEs) and the sheer bullish business sentiment in India". '' Our confidence in India is reflected through our expansion plans," he added.

The company also plans to increase its investment in the e-governance space.

Oracle, that claims to have become the "largest enterprise software vendor" in the world, has been present in India for more than 19 years.

"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," said Phillips.

"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 Krishan Dhawan, MD, Oracle India.

Meanwhile, based on "customer inputs", the nearly $12 billion company had recently introduced the "Lifeline Support Policy" whereby customers would receive support for the older versions too.

"They would not be forced to upgrade to a newer version if it suited their business requirements," said William, adding that this had helped them increase their customer base.

Almost 80 per cent of Oracle's licence revenue in India is generated by its 275 partners, said William.

Assuring Oracle partners of the company's continued support, he said "We can see what's next on the horizon. Our existing infrastructure will support our next generation initiatvies."

Highlighting the company's community initiatives, Phillips noted that the think.com platform is offered free to over 780 schools in India. With over 2.15 lakh registered students, "India is the largest think.com country in the world", he said.