India's fastest growing in AsiaPac' soc.culture.indian, sci.research.careers, soc.culture.bangladesh

SHELLEY SINGH TIMES NEWS NETWORK THURSDAY, AUGUST 03, 2006 12:04:29 AM

Henning Kagermann, former Physics teacher and now chairman of the executive board and CEO of German software giant SAP, is betting big on India. In an interview he talks about his plans for India and future technology trends. Excerpts:

In the recent past quite a few global technology companies have announced large investments in India. Is there a major change in how global companies view India?

India is the fastest growing market in the Asia Pacific region and itās not surprising that India is on the top agenda of all global CEOs. We have invested $500m so far and will invest $1bn over the next five years. We will also double the India headcount over the next five years.

What do you think about wikis and blogs? These started in consumer domain and now are being adopted by enterprises. Will future technologies see a similar route-from consumers to enterprises?

Wikis and blogs are great. They help people share information and share knowledge. Though there could be issues regarding quality of information being created. Enterprises are looking at these to enhance their experience and interactions with employees and customers alike.

I donāt see future technologies around enterprise applications that run businesses taking a similar route. Thatās because SAP is running the business of enterprises. If the application is down, the enterprise will be out of business.

What technology trends do you see?

I see two trends which will become big. These are convergence between engineering and software and between business and software.

For instance in the former case you can look at the automobile industry and see all the software enhancements there. This is due to greater convergence between engineering and software.

We also acquired a company Lighthammer Software, a supplier of enterprise manufacturing software, that is delivering enhanced connectivity between the plant floor and the enterprise.

In case of convergence between business and software, you can see the change in terms of business decision makers getting close to IT to improve their businesses.