From: udcrusd@meaddata.com (Sylvia D'Cruz)
Subject: INDIAN SILICON VALLEY
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 15:28:45 GMT
Distribution: soc.culture.indian

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                           Source: Reuter Textline
                           Business Times (Singapore)

                               September  4, 1992

INDIA:  SINGAPORE SOFTWARE FIRMS PLUG INTO INDIAN SILICON VALLEY

BY Harish Mehta

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    SINGAPORE - Several Singapore companies have set up computer software
subsidiaries in Bangalore, which is fast emerging as India's own Silicon Valley.

    Bangalore-based executives of software houses say India offers perhaps the
world's highest profit margins for software exports - about 50 per cent. Michael
Cline, the Bangalore-based president of an IBM joint venture, noted that
software development costs in India were "half those in the US".

    Industry sources here add that Indian software engineers can complete jobs
in a fraction of the time normally taken in Singapore.

    A World Bank study has ranked India No. 1 for both on-site and offshore
software development. For on-site software development, Singapore ranked fifth
after India, Ireland, Israel and Mexico. For offshore work - carried out for
overseas clients - Singapore again ranked fifth after India, Ireland, Hungary
and Mexico.

    A recent visit by BT to Bangalore - featured more fully in the September
issue of Singapore Business - found a surprising number of Singapore companies
operating there.

    Local software company Eutech Cybernetics moved to India recently, taking a
60 per cent stake in a Bangalore software house. Eutech's managing director, Dr
Hari Gunasingham, said: "Eventually we expect to export about 60 to 70 per cent
of our software output from Bangalore."

    Last month, Eutech acquired a 60 per cent stake in the Bangalore-based
simulation division of a medium-sized engineering company, Macmet India Ltd.
Macmet is part of the Bombay-listed Gujarat Ambuja Cement group.

    For two-year-old Eutech, Bangalore is one leg of a strategic business
triangle: Singapore for global marketing and value-added services; Bangalore for
technical expertise and software development; and San Jose in California's
Silicon Valley, where it plans to set up an office to serve as a gateway to the
US market.

    Among the early birds was Thakral Brothers Pte Ltd, an electronics and
trading group. It has a 40 per cent stake worth about S$ 100,000 in Thakral
Computers, set up in April 1987.

    Another was the Singapore unit of California's Sun Microsystems, which
penetrated the vast Indian market in 1988 by appointing Wipro Infotech Ltd to
assemble and distribute its products. Bangalore-based Wipro Infotech is among
India's top 10 hardware houses.

    More recently, Deutsche Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Bank
in Singapore, also set up in Bangalore to exclusively serve its Singapore needs.
In January, it invested about S$ 600,000 in start-up costs and now employs 10
software engineers.

    Chief executive officer Jyoti Sahai said future plans included serving
Deutsche Bank in Germany as well.

    Another Singapore-based bank, ANZ International, also set up a Bangalore
subsidiary, Index Computing, in 1989 with a S$ 2.8 million investment, since
raised to about S$ 7 million.
-
Business Times, 4 September 1992

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