CMC Ltd., India’s leading IT company in the public sector, has recently set up an ERP centre in Calcutta in collaboration with the Dutch software giant, Baan, the world’s second largest ERP implementor. CMC expects that its future growth would be driven by the alliance with Baan. The fast growing ERP market in India is worth about $125 million and is growing annually at the rate of 50%. The company expects to set up ERP systems in various public sector companies, besides in some steel and pharmaceutical companies.

Chrysalis Information Systems, Mumbai, a part of the Trilogy group of companies, has entered into a strategic alliance with Development Credit Bank, a leading private bank of the Agha Khan Foundation, Paris, to develop a state-of-the-art retail, wholesale and Internet banking product named : PowerBanker.

PowerBanker is a comprehensive bank automation solution addressing the entire gamut of operations of a bank including retail, wholesale, treasury and risk management activities.

As part of its strategy to expand into the Asian market, Hyperion Software has tied-up with Baan InfoSystems India Ltd., to make available its financial software solutions, that cover topics like consolidation, budgeting and planning, management reporting, decision support, executing delivery, and financial and sales analysis.

Hyperion’s solution and packages will be targeted at midrange to large companies having annual revenues of about US $ 30 to 50 millions in the banking, government and telecom sectors.

US-based SEEC Inc., has licensed Tata Infotech Ltd., (TIL), Mumbai, for marketing its Y2K solution : SmartChange Factory in India.. The solution would provide TIL with a suite of Y2K services, ranging from assessment, planning and renovation through testing and implementation. TIL can now integrate the SEEC Smart Change Factory tools with its PACE 2000 methodology. It will use this product to penetrate the market for Y2K solutions on IBM computer systems.

Formerly known as Tata Unisys, TIL is positioned as a total systems integrator in the Indian marketplace, and as a software services and solutions provider in the overseas market.

MSR Group, Mumbai, has entered into a joint venture with the US-based PKS Information Services to provide software services on a worldwide basis. Named : Amsoft Information Services (India), the joint venture will be headquartered at a newly established software engineering centre in Bangalore, with upto 200 systems specialists in the first year of operations.

BPL Telecom Limited (BTL), Bangalore, a member of the $1 billion BPL group, has signed a joint development agreement with Harris Digital Telephone Systems, a part of the US-based $3.8 billion Fortune 500 company, Harris Corporation. Under the agreement, BTL will develop software and hardware for Harris PBX systems for use in India and overseas. The products and solutions developed by BTL in India would be marketed by Harris Corporation in the US market and also exported to other countries.

Compaq Computer (India) and Price Waterhouse Associates (PWA) have entered into an alliance to work together on projects in the area of SAP R/3 ERP applications targeted at Indian customers. This alliance brings together the two companies and presents organizations planning to implement SAP R/3 the synergy of the individual strengths of Compaq and PWA.

As part of the alliance, the companies have set up the ‘Price Water Associates - Compaq SAP R/3 India Competence Centre ‘ at Salt Lake City, Calcutta. The competence centre will provide Indian customers with opportunities to work with the application, get pre-and- post sales consultancy and support, and customization of the Compaq platform.

Synon Corporation, a US-based provider of integrated development technologies and services for custom and commercial applications, has appointed Pentafour Software and Exports Limited (PSEL), Chennai, as its channel partner in India for distributing and offering training on Obsydian, a workstation-based application development solution from Synon. Under the agreement, Pentafour will provide software implementation, migration, training and consultancy support for Obsydian for the whole of the SAARC ( South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) and East Asian regions.

Oracle India Development Centre (IDC) based in Bangalore announced a joint initiative with the Industry Application Division (IAD) of Oracle Inc. to assist in the development of an expanding line of strategic business applications and proven industry solution suites.

IDC has been awarded the project to re-engineer the Oracle energy downstream product to incorporate the use of Oracle’s technology and tools such as Developer 2000, Designer 2000 and Oracle Financials.

Microsoft Corporation and Planetasia.com of Microland have tied-up to create Internet technology solutions for corporates in India. As Microsoft’s IT partner, Planetasia.com will focus on creating and hosting web sites on Microsoft platforms and designing and developing Intranets using Microsoft technologies.

Microsoft will work closely with Planetasia.com to deliver advanced technologies and fulfill complex Internet and Intranet requirements of enterprises. Along with its partners, it will create web-based solutions that are easy to implement and suit the individual requirements of corporate end-users in India. Microsoft will also feature Planetasia.com as an Active Channel Partner under the business section in Internet Explorer 4.0. At Planetasia.com, it will have the web site as a strategic tool to build communities of people interested in using the web for business advantage.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has tied with about 15 indigenous software solution providers as partner developers for its business accounting software : E.X Next Generation (E.X. NGN). While the objective of the co-development is to enhance the capabilities of the business accounting software, it will also give the indigenous solution a penetration into the respective niche areas.

Microsoft India is also a partner for E.X. NGN in that TCS is talking to Microsoft for its development for SQL Server, apart from having developed the accounting software for Windows NT platform. TCS does not rule out the possibility of E.X. NGN being bundled with Microsoft’s Office products.

Jasdic Park Company, which was set up in Tokyo two years ago to promote the Indian software development capabilities in Japan, recently signed a joint venture agreement with three major Indian software companies - DCM Data Systems, New Delhi, Satyam Computer Services, Hyderabad, and Infosys Technologies Ltd., Bangalore.

With the signing of the agreement, Jasdic Park becomes the only full-fledged Indo-Japanese joint venture in Japan with a paid-in capital amounting to 192 million yen. Jasdic Park expects to handle more projects, especially those related to the Year-2000 problem and the C/S system.

Jasdic Park has helped to overcome the earlier widespread concerns among Japanese companies which were interested in using India’s software development capabilities. It is now charged with indispensable functions to facilitate the use of Indian software development resources by Japanese companies.

Sybase and Pentafour Software Exports Ltd., Chennai, have entered into a partnership to provide Pentabank - a retail commercial banking solution built on Sybase’s database technology and front-end tool : Powerbuilder. Pentabank is said to offer as its key features relationship banking, tele-banking, ATM connectivity customer terminal, user terminal, multitasking sweep and reverse sweep to meet the needs of India’s growing banking and manufacturing segments.

Sybase and Pentafour will jointly work towards providing value-added services like systems integration, consulting and on-site training for all the customers. The partners said they are ready to provide scaleable applications for financial sector.

The US-based $8 billion Sun Microsystems, which is a world leader in Unix-based workstations and a manufacturer of software as well as microprocessor chips, has signed an agreement with SIP Technologies Export Limited (SIPtech), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chennai-based SIP Industries, to establish a Java technology development and testing facility in India for Sun’s Javasoft business unit.

SIPtech has its state-of-the-art facility at Elnet Software City, Taramani, Chennai, with a focus on software development services, enterprise consulting and engineering application services.