Aptech announces E-Architect strategy in India

BANGALORE: Aptech Ltd. has announced its E-Architect strategy in India, under

which the company will provide a host of products and services that have been

specifically designed for global markets. This includes enterprise knowledge

portals and collaborative portals for building Virtual Private Networks (VPN)

and Application Service Provider (ASP) solutions, as well as search engines for

e-markets. As part of this strategy, Aptech has opened its e-commerce technology

center in Bangalore.

Speaking about the new initiatives taken by Aptech, company's Managing

Director, Ganesh Natarajan, said, " E-Business Architects are addressing

the huge global demand that has been created by the shift in IT spending away

from internal automation efforts like ERP towards Web initiatives, which include

B2C and B2B e-commerce. E-Business Architect firms in the US enjoy multi-billion

dollar market capitalization and the market size for E-Architect services is

currently estimated at $59 billion in 1999 growing at 15 per cent till 2003.

Aptech through its full range of services in this area and network of software

factories and marketing offices worldwide intends to capture global market share

in this space." "The e-Architect strategy will see Aptech providing

complete e-business solutions on par with global corporations like Sapient,

Agency.com, Diamond Technology and Viant and we are expecting Rs 100 crore of

e-business revenues in the year 2000", he added.

Currently Aptech is working with Apparel Company to provide complete

e-business solutions. The company plans to take around 10-25 per cent stake in

this company. Apart from this Aptech is working with an investment management

company and plans to take stake in that also. With an initial investment of

around Rs 20 crore, Aptech has opened its ASP division BconnectB, in Mumbai. GT

Koteswara Rao, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Solutions group, who will head

this group said, "We find great opportunity in this segment and are sure

that we can win significant market share with our unique capabilities."

Aptech is expecting to reach Rs 1,000 crore turnover by year 2002 and expects

30-35 per cent contribution from its e-business division. Currently its training

and software development divisions are contributing around 74 per cent and 26

per cent revenues respectively.