Job losses unlikely in India

MUMBAI: Within months of arch rival Oracle sealing a deal in the business intelligence (BI) software space with the acquisition of Hyperion Solutions, SAP created its own Hyperion by acquiring Paris-headquartered Business Objects for close to $5 billion.

Though Hyperion had limited presence in India, Business Objects has a 300 people research and development team in Bangalore which it plans to take up to 500 in a few years.

On the other hand, SAP India has 800 people, with another 3,500 people on the rolls of SAP Labs, its R&D arm.

But overall, Oracle has a larger presence in the country, with over 20,000 employees.

Neither SAP nor Business Objectives responded on the likely impact the acquisition on their Indian operations. However analysts say no job loss are expected since SAP is in enterprise resource planning (ERP) while Business Objects provides business intelligence tools, which as a package sits on top of the ERP and is a value add.

Post acquisitions, Business Objects will continue to operate as a stand-alone business as part of the SAP Group.

Besides India, Business Objects has R&D centres in China, Canada, and California. Its mid-market offering is being developed out of India.

Outside of Germany’s India is home to SAP’s largest development centre.

It plans to double headcount to 7,000.

The Asia-Pacific market for BI and BPM was $340 million in 2005.