SAP’s biggest lab in APAC to be set up in Bangalore

BANGALORE: SAP Labs has commenced its work in building its largest facility in the Asia Pacific region at Bangalore. The facility, to be ready for occupation by the end of 2003, is being built up with an investment of 20 million euro and is spread across 15 acres of land at Whitefield in the outskirts of Bangalore.

Capable of accommodating 1000 employees, the company plans to add 250 additional developers to the existing 500 developers, housed in ITPL, by the end of 2003,before moving to the new facility. The upcoming facility is expected to carry on with the primarily job of SAP Labs’ in India of research and development activities. Apart from this, the company, also plan to have a training center to train SAP India’s customers.

The facility project would be housing an additional 500 developers during the first phase of its development besides the existing 500 SAP developers. SAP AG Executive Board Member Peter Zencke said "SAP AG enjoys the success of SAP Labs India and believes in its further progress. Despite the current market scenario and the down turns in the IT industry SAP is committed towards the construction of the campus facility for research and development activities in India"

(CNS)

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SAP sees tough software market, has not hit bottom

SAP AG said on Friday the industry would be facing a much tougher market and it was too early to say if the company had turned a corner. "Overall, the software business is stable... but it is too early to say we have touched the bottom," said Zencke "We are going to have a much more tougher market."

But Zencke said SAP was still in better shape than its competitors and he expected the company to eventually emerge from the global downturn. He did not give a time frame for this. In July, SAP reported softer demand in all regions except Germany, confirming the dim picture it painted earlier, and offered no hope of a quick rebound.

Earlier last month, the company shocked markets by slashing its 2002 sales forecast to 5-10 percent from 15 percent after posting preliminary second-quarter results well short of analysts' forecasts, joining a growing list of technology firms hit by a drastic slowdown in investment spending.

It had reported a 4 percent drop in second-quarter sales to 1.8 billion euros and a 23 percent fall in operating profit excluding stock-based compensation and acquisition charges to 324 million euros. Like many software makers, SAP saw a number of big deals snatched away after customers pulled out of apparently firm spending commitments at the last minute due to persistent uncertainty over the economic outlook.

SAP recently won a $19-million order from India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp, and Zencke said he expected more of the firm's oil-and-gas related work to shift to India.

© Reuters