Ranal Sopha Medical, a joint venture between the Deneb group of companies and Sopha Medical Vision International (SMV), France, is planning to set up a software development centre in Bangalore. The company has charted out a two phase investment plan for the centre. The first phase would involve an investment of Rs. 6 crores ($ 1.7 million) and a further investment of Rs. 4 crores ($1.1 million) would be made in the second phase.

CCE Software, the software arm of Chandra's Chemical Enterprises Ltd (CCEL) - a wing of the Calcutta-based P. C. Chandra "Group"- has entered into a software development and marketing tie-up with IDS Prof. Scheer GmbH, the German international consultancy and software company and a world leader in developing industry-related methods, tools and models. It has a full fledged exports group that develops offshore software projects for their global clients. The software division has a strong base in Germany and off-shore software development tie-ups in Israel, Australia and the United States.

IDS Prof Scheer GmbH will provide backup support and train CCE personnel on the Aris Toolset products and associated methodology to create and expand the market in India. Talks are on with IDS to offload part of the Aris development in India. Mercedes Benz, Lufthansa, Bayer, Hoechst and IBM are among the 500 large organizations worldwide which use the Aris Toolset products, besides many Indian firms and organizations.

The Tata-IBM joint venture, Tata Information systems Ltd (TISL), Bangalore, has signed an agreement with SAP India to become an implementation partner for SAP solutions. The tie-up is significant as IBM is one of the largest implementation partners of SAP worldwide.

A unique aspect of TISL's implementation of SAP projects will be its role in offering a total system integration solution that encompasses consulting services, complimentary software, industry solutions, platform and technology.

Integrata Consulting has signed an agreement with Mindware, Germany, a subsidiary of Mindware International, the software wing of PCL Ltd., New Delhi, for working on year-2000 and European single currency conversion projects.

Year 2000 conversions are expected to generate DM 4.2 billions in Germany alone. Integrata is Germany's leading consultants in the IT field and specializes in the manufacturing industry, financial services, retailing and public administration.

Mindware and Integrata have agreed to work together on all matters relating to the two projects. Integrata will be responsible for risk analysis, consulting, project management and quality control and act as the main liaison between customers and Mindware which in turn will provide specialists to carry out the conversions.

Baan Info Systems, a subsidiary of Netherlands-based Baan Company, and Informix Software have announced a technology agreement under which Baan will embed 'Informix On-line Workgroup Server' and 'Informix-Online Dynamic Server' on its Baan IV software applications for the Unix market.

With this announcement, Baan will begin to migrate Baan IV customers using its proprietary 'Tribase Technology' to commercially available relational technology from Informix.

According to Baan, it has selected Informix as its embedded database technology, based on its long-standing relationship with Informix. All of Baan IV Unix customers will automatically receive the Online Workgroup Server as an embedded application component.

Fujitsu ICIM Ltd (FIL), a joint venture between UK-based ICL, Fujitsu, Japan, and RPG Enterprises of India, has formed a business alliance with the US-based IVR (Interactive Voice Response) solutions suppliers, Periphonics Corp. for distributing the American company's voice processing solutions in India.

Fujitsu ICIM is also one of the business partners of Sun Microsystems and a leading systems integrator with a focus on telecom, financial services and the retail sector. Fujitsu ICIM would also provide value - added service and solutions-based installation for IVR and voice processing and transaction processing solutions in the country. The initial focus would be on the telecom sector.