| NEW DELHI: Global software majors have declared a no-holds-barred war in India. And the showdown of strength revolves around “Who is the largest employer of them all?”. And in the showdown, Oracle has emerged the winner, with a headcount of 2,000. HP is not too far behind with 1,000 strong development workforce and 500 in its backoffice operations. Equally aggressively in showcasing their manpower strength are SAP with 500 people, Adobe with 250 and Microsoft with 125 people of board. Equally big is the debate on who is growing at a faster pace. Already having doubled its base in the last two years, Oracle commits to be growing at the same pace. While Microsoft is promising to have 300 people on board by next year, Adobe plans to double number every two years. HP is also committed to treble its workforce in seven years, announced during Carly Fiorina’s visit. SAP, Adobe, Texas Instruments, Cadence, Veritas Software and Ensim have ambitious expansion plans too. In sharp contrast, most of the Indian software companies are slow on recruitments. Not only are these companies on a hiring spree in India, but they are also scouting to expand their developer network. Oracle boasts of 1,00,000-strong community of developers, largest outside the US, and is still gung-ho on its technology seminars and shipping of trial software. Microsoft is equally aggressive with its technology evangelist programme and contests to woo developers. Obviously, their expansion plans are also creating a stir in the property market, with space being leased out running over 50,000 square feet and sometimes even exceeding a lakh of square feet. The deals which made news recently included mega development plans being hatched by i2 Technologies, SAP Labs, Intel, Network Associates, 3Com arm CommWorks Corporation and Microsoft. For tech majors, chips may be down in global markets, but they are going strong in the Indian market, thanks to the costs in India being lower by 20 to 25 per cent. And even the companies who are declaring layoffs elsewhere are busy recruiting here. |
