MUMBAI: Charles Phillips, president, Oracle, announced the company's plans for expansion in India. The company hopes to increase the headcount to 10,000 from 8,600 currently, in the next eight months. The company will also push for expansion in more cities, going from 6 to 15 cities in the next eight months.
Talking at a media briefing at the Oracle Open World seminar, Phillips highlighted the fact that Oracle was the first multi-national company to have set up its development center in India in 1994. He said that Oracle has invested over $2 billion over the past five years in India.
Speaking on Oracle's investment in the future, Phillips said that, “We rely a lot more on India for innovation and have made strategic investments in companies like i-flex due to the same reason.” Oracle has around 6,000 technology customers and 400 applications customers in India.
Oracle's Rural Push
Oracle intends to expand its operation to cities like, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Pune and Vishakhapatnam in the next eight months. Derek Williams, executive vice president, Oracle (Asia Pacific Division), said, “The next wave of opportunities lie in the rural sector in India. And the addition of nine more cities translates into good business opportunity for Oracle in India.” Banking, Automotive sector, ITeS, etc will be the key growth sectors for Oracle in the future, he added.
Krishan Dhawan, managing director, Oracle India, said, “The non-metro cities in India will have an unprecedented level of choice in enterprise software, which is critical to its emerging companies. 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.”
Increasing Headcount
Oracle will also be increasing its headcount in India; currently Oracle has 8600 employees in India and hopes to add approximately 1400 people on its rolls in the next eight months. Oracle had a headcount of 6900 the year before, with two-thirds of the new people coming in from Oracle's various global acquisitions, divulged Dhawan.
The additional resources will be in the areas of sales and marketing, product development, consulting, product support and services. Oracle in India employs 17% of Oracle's total worldwide staff of 51,000.
E-governance Initiatives
Oracle is also firming up its E-governance ventures; it is currently working with more than 28 Indian state governments and is currently engaged in over 100 live government projects. The company has also instituted the Oracle Excellence in eGovernance awards to be presented in the Open World.
Speaking at the event, Phillips also said that the upcoming “Oracle Fusion was a product line for the next generation.” He also said that India Development Center was actively involved in the development of Fusion Middleware platform.
Phillips also said that the shift for Linux was growing and it is the platform of choice for around 80% new customers. “We are the key proponents of Linux and we grow as Linux grows,” he added. On Oracle's partnership with Sun Microsystems, Phillips said their will be new initiatives launched in collaboration. “Sun is currently very aggressive. We are also working closely with other partners like HP and AMD, as well.”
On the challenges from Microsoft in the Database and ERP space, Phillips said, “I have been surprised at how slow Microsoft has been in this space.” He also added that Microsoft did not pose any immediate threat as a competition for Oracle.
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