A most modern facility of IVL India Pvt Ltd, a 100% software export unit wholly- owned by Informationsverarbeitung Leverkussen GmbH (IVL GmbH), one of the leading software development houses established in 1993 in Germany, was formally inaugurated recently at the Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram in the State of Kerala.

Since the requirements of software development for public utilities had grown, IVL GmbH had set up IVL India to expand the overall capacity of software development. IVL India, established in February 1995, started commercial operations in April 1996.

IVL India and IVL Germany had signed a 10 year long term business contract for developing software systems for public utilities, municipal corporations and community development. The managing director of IVL India said that the company had successfully developed software applications for the German public organizations including housing system, vehicle registration and traffic administration and other public utility software products. Projects related to German elections and tax systems are in the pipeline now.

ABB Daimler Benz Transportation is to invest Rs. 35 crores ($ 10 million) in boosting the infrastructure of its software export unit in Vadodara in the State of Gujarat, India.

ABB Daimler Benz Transportation was legally formed on January 1, 1996, by merging the respective railway activities of the Swiss-Swedish electrical engineering group, ABB, and Daimler-Benz AG. The company produces locomotive and railway signaling components and, consequently, the software unit is focused on producing traffic management and signaling software for railways, with its entire output consumed by companies within the group. Adtranz Signal A/S of Denmark which specializes in railway systems will be the know-how provider for the unit. In India, Western Railways, in particular, has been using the unit's management and signaling software to achieve higher traffic densities.

HCL - Hewlett Packard has recently inaugurated the SAP centre of excellence in association with Germany's SAP AG at Noida, near New Delhi. The centre, set up at a cost of Rs. 5 crores ($1.4 million), would focus on providing 'Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)' solutions for corporates in the field of telecommunications, manufacturing, oil, chemicals and heavy engineering.

The centre would aim to further consolidate the leadership of the company in the ERP market. It would offer industry-specific templates for various vertical segments for faster implementation of SAP. HCL - HP professional services organization is the national implementation partner of SAP in India.

QAD Inc., a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution provider, will soon set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in India. Apart from the subsidiary, the company will also set up a centre of excellence for MFG/PRO, its flagship ERP solution. The centre is to come up by the end of 1997.

According to the company, it has a total of 32,000 installations, with 20 per cent of them in the Asia-Pacific region. It claims that it already has a 20 per cent share in the Indian market, with 22 installations of MFG/PRO.

Cadence Design Systems, a US-based $742 million supplier of EDA software for electronic design, will soon set up a 70,000 sq.ft research and development facility in Noida Export Processing Zone (NEPZ), near New Delhi. According to Cadence's Managing Director, this facility would be its largest centre outside the US. The company plans to invest to the tune of $5 millions for setting up this facility.

To expand its reach in the country, the firm also has plans to set up a sales office in Bangalore. Cadence provides services and technology for product development requirements of the world's leading electronic companies.

Schlumberger Inc., has set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in India to focus on electronic transaction products including smart cards, terminals and complete systems. The initial investment proposed is $ 10 million. During the launch, the chairman and CEO, said, ' There will be over two billion smart cards in circulation by the year 2000. A sizable portion of that will be in India".

Besides setting up a subsidiary, the company also plans to operate an R&D centre and a software development centre at Gurgaon, near New Delhi.