The company, through its wholly-owned Indian subsidiary SAP India, is eager to make equity investment in Indian companies developing e-commerce solutions.

"We are actively scouting for companies with really good business consulting experience which can help impart such knowledge to enterprise customers on how to use the internet and e-commerce as an intrinsic part of their business," president and chief executive of SAP AG Asia-Pacific Les Hayman told The Financial Express.

Refusing to put down a figure for such investment, Hayman said preliminary negotiations had already been held with certain companies. "Whatever it takes, we are looking for companies that can translate technology into dynamic solutions in sync with our needs on a worldwide level," he added.The move is in line with SAP AG's decision to embrace internet in total e-business solutionevaluation, implementation and provision. Last week, SAP announced that it is working on development of System mySAP.com, which will provide a comprehensive, open e-business solutions environment comprising portals, industry-specific enterprise applications, internet applications and services, as well as XML-based technology to enable companies to participate in the internet economy.

System mySAP.com will provide enterprises the means to integrate internet applications with internet services within the specific business context and enable them to participate in open, collaborative virtual marketplaces that facilitate one-step business.

"Customers will be able to build their own solutions based on a selection of some or all components of System mySAP.com. It can be fully integrated with existing enterprise applications," Hayman said.

SAP will demonstrate System mySAP.com in September and its first edition is due to become available to customers in the third quarter of 1999. It will be made available on aper-seat basis, as well as per indirect usage over the internet. The company said it will encourage clients with existing SAP solutions to convert to System mySAP.com, but has not indicated the cost of migration.

Undeterred by the slowdown in enterprise resource planning market this year which has seen its growth rate halved to 50 per cent as against 100 per cent the year before, SAP India is in the process of expanding its operations in India.

It will soon increase the number of software engineers from 250 to 300 in its Bangalore development centre and hire 100 other employees to take the total staff strength in India to 500 by the year-end, according to Hayman. SAP already has five branches in India and plans to open more. It will also increase the number of SAP implementors from the present 14.

The company plans to tie up with an Indian education and training company to start several authorised SAP training centres. In addition, it has drawn up a plan to tie up with at least six more universities andeducational institutions in India this year to provide SAP training along with their regular curriculum. It has already partnered with Indian Institutes of Management in Bangalore and Calcutta.

"The idea is to increase the pool of trained people available. Students of any stream can pick up invaluable SAP training while studying so that when they graduate, they already have SAP accreditation," Hayman said. uMerant named leader in middleware market

International Data Corporation (IDC) has named Merant as the industry leader in the access middleware market. According to IDC's report, `Middleware: 1999 Worldwide Markets and Trends,' Merant took the top spot based on market share. The report's findings and predictions on the changing middleware market indicate that Merant, through its DataDirect technology, is well positioned to address the new e-business requirements of its customers.