The agreement comes on the heels of another joint venture CA signed onTuesday in Delhi with Escorts group IT company Escosoft to develophealthcare and telecommunications applications.

CA chairman and CEO Charles B Wang told media persons in Bangalore that CAwould provide the core technology and funding (the initial investment in theJV is $1.5 million) while Pentafour had brought expertise and its talentpool to the table.

CA's suite of offerings apart from the funds include its ACCPAC technology,a line of accounting and business management software for financial andoperations management and e-business solutions. The target market for thesolutions ranges from small companies to enterprises.

Pentafour chairman and managing director V Chandrasekaran said India was yetto be recognised as a product country although it had moved up the valuechain from being a body-shoppers' paradise to an offshore projects base. TheJV would attempt to establish the country as a serious product player, hesaid.

Computer Associates India Pvt Ltd managing director Venkat Subba Rao saidthe accounting software would be customised to the requirements of thedomestic market.

Wang asserted that CA was not looking at India as a cheap source of labour.He said despite the strong development talent available in the country, theproblem was ``what to use it for, and how''. He said the issues in a marketlike India were not limited by development potential. ``Once you develop andapplication, the problem is how to commercialise, productise and distributeit,'' Wang pointed out.

If the local IT industry grew, it would lead to increased use of informationtechnology tools, which would be to the advantage of companies like CA, heobserved.

On acquisitions in the country, he said CA was ``always on the lookout'' forcompanies with strong skill sets, but added that there were no immediatetargets in sight.

The joint venture is part of CA's $100 million 5-year investment plan forIndia. Wang said the company had already invested roughly $40 million in thecountry since the plan got off the ground in 1997. CA has over a dozen jointventures across the world and operates in more than 100 countries.