Oracle to hire 2000 more by Dec

Enterprise software company Oracle on Wednesday said it would grow its headcount in India by 2000 this year.

In 2005 the company's headcount grew from 2,000 to 8,000. "The number of employees will cross 10,000 by the end of this year," Krishan Dhawan, managing director of Oracle India operations said.

At present the company has 9,500 employees in India. The company has invested around $2 billion dollars in the country in last few years and has plans to expand further.

"India along with China are the two strategic markets for Oracle. We have around 6,000 technology and 500 application customers in India including State Bank of India, Maruti, Air India and LG," Mark Gibbs, senior vice president, Applications, Oracle Corporation Asia Pacific Division said.

He said that in India the company's focus would be on ID-market and application space. It is also planning its channel partners. Last year Oracle increased the number of partners by 71 to 240.

The company is also looking at greater participation in e-governance projects, and planning to invest in citizen service centres 100,000 of which will come up all over the country.

"In e-governance, the opportunities are unlimited. We are investing in it. We are looking at overall e-governance," Dhawan said.

Oracle India is already providing solutions to Calcutta Municipality and State electricity board of Gujarat and other states. The company has also set up Centre of excellence to develop and showcase solutions specific for government needs.