Summit Infotech plans R&D center

NEW DELHI: Summit Infotech, a Rs 30 crore company, plans to invest Rs 9 crore

in a R&D center in Gurgaon. Summit managing director Rakesh Kapoor said the

center will develop products that will help convert contents in the legacy

system to a system compatible with the Internet. The center plans to employ 120

computer engineers and has already hired 40. The new center will also work

towards converting the existing contents in HTML and XML (languages of the

Internet) to WML (the language used to access Internet content through mobile

phones).

The main idea behind the exercise is to understand new avenues of software

development. "After the Y2K bug, conversion of content in the legacy system

to Web-enabled languages has great business potential," said Kapoor.

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) will also give substantial business to

Indian software service providers.

Summit Infotech has decided to concentrate on software development and

services. The company will however continue its distribution of Adobe,

QuarkExpress, Umax and Kodak.

Summit is also planning to go in for joint ventures in the US and Europe as

part of its strategy to take its products overseas. It has held discussions with

overseas companies to set up joint ventures for co-marketing and product

development. It plans to establish its presence in Germany first and then go on

to the US. Summit’s product portfolio includes NEWSPRO, ADPRO and INDICA, all

for the publishing industry. The company, which posted a turnover of Rs 30 crore

in 1999-2000, estimates a turnover of Rs 40 crore in the current fiscal.