Progress Software plans to expand India operations

Progress Software Corporation, the US-based supplier of open application infrastructure software to accelerate the development, integration and management of business applications, plans to expand its India operations.
Progress Software Development Pvt Ltd, the company's Indian subsidiary that has its operations here, will invest $3.5 million during 2006 to expand the operations. The headcount too will go up from 65 to over 120 this year.
The Indian operation, started a year ago at HITEC City here, is the firm's largest software development centre outside US.
'This is our largest development centre outside the US. We have already invested $2 million,' said Michael Hickman, managing director of Progress Software Development.
'Presently 65 employees are doing leading-edge software design and development in Java, C++ and .Net,' Hickman told IANS.
'We will take additional space as we grow. The company might also think of expanding to other Indian cities.'
The company currently has 75 customers including both end user customers and indirect sales. It plans to set up direct sales offices.
Founded in 1981, the Nasdaq-listed firm clocked revenues of $405 million in 2005, registering a growth of 17 percent over the previous year. The company registers $5 billion of technology sales globally every year.
'This is our first development centre in Asia-Pacific,' Hickman said. The Asia-Pacific region accounted for five percent of the firm's total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2005 and the company has a strategy to increase this share.
Headquartered in Bedford, the firm has 1,600 employees worldwide with 90 offices in 60 countries. The firm, which has around 2,000 partners, delivers 5000 unique business applications and has done a lot of work on services oriented applications (SOA).
Among the business applications developed by it include stock tracking technology. Used by major banks and financial institutions, it helps in automatically buying and selling stocks.
The company has 110,000 customer sites in 135 countries. Over 60,000 new users acquire Progress-based technology every year. The company has also bagged many awards for innovation, including the Info World Innovation award 2005.