SAP, one of the world's largest providers of business software solutions, is planning to recruit about 500 programmers in India as a part of its expansion drive.
SAP currently employs close to 1,000 people in India and about 30,000 people globally. The company will hire 1,500 globally this year, of which 500 will be in India.
SAP says that India makes good business sense because the salaries of computer programmers are lower in India and India is an emerging market for the company, which makes application software to automate corporate accounting, human resources and manufacturing.
SAP's Bangalore center develops Web portal software, Web services technology and applications for customer service and sales.
SAP inaugurated the phase-I of their 21-acre campus in Bangalore, near the International Technology Park, in November 2003.
SAP has invested Euro 20 million in building its new campus. The one in Bangalore is SAP's largest campus outside Waldorf, Germany, where it is headquartered.
"I am told that this is the single largest German IT facility in India and the second largest SAP facility in the world. In fact, the newly built campus in Bangalore is the only property SAP owns outside Germany," D B Inamdar, Minister for Information Technology and Tourism, Government of Karnataka, said recently.
Clas Neumann, Joint Managing Director of SAP India, said that unlike many companies who came to India looking to cut costs, SAP came because it found a large pool of technically talented people.
SAP had opened its research and development centre in Bangalore, India, in 1998 and said in 2003 that it would invest $120 million more on expansion in the country.