The company would showcase its expertise in design and development of e-commerce, Internet & Intranet solutions - providing Web-based front-ends for legacy applications and developing application components for the e-commerce, Intranets & the Internet.

``Sonata would exhibit in a space equivalent to two stalls at the e-commerce pavilion in electronics city near the garden city. The company is also planning to share their expertise in latest technologies. Plans are afoot to introduce emerging trends in software along with an in-depth view of applications for the new millennium,'' Sonata Software managing director and president B Ramaswamy said. The strategy that motivates the company is the exploding opportunities in the e-commerce sector. For instance, the Internet commerce scenario in the country is expected to grow to Rs 200 crore in 1999-2000. In a field, where technology is constantly changing, e-commerce promises to be the fastest growing application areas in the IT software industry, according to industry observers.

The real growth would be in 2001-2, when Internet commerce transactions will grow to Rs 2,538 crore. The direction Indian Internet commerce will take would be in line with global trends, with business-to-business dominating in the coming years.

With a proven track record in Web technology, the technology capability and the ability to ramp up in a short span of time, Sonata is focussed on building high quality, cost effective services around emerging technology.It plans to concentrate on new initiatives and capabilities in emerging opportunity areas like e-commerce, offering a range of solutions around e-commerce like application development, web enablement, re-engineering, business intelligence and technology deployment. This would also include providing professional services for deployment of e-commerce tools, customization and planning on leading-edge technologies from infotech majors like Microsoft, Oracle, Sun and IBM.

Sonata Software recently announced that it had posted a net profit of Rs 54.96 million for the second quarter, an increase of 131 per cent over last year's second quarter. The Bangalore-based company had also declared an interim dividend of 15 per cent. For the half-year ended September 30, 1999, earnings touched Rs 98.80 million, a rise of 122 per cent over the corresponding period previous fiscal. It may be recalled that in May, this year, Sonata declared a dividend of 30 per cent for the full year ended March 31, 1999.