Disclosing to this to The Financial Express, Aptech managing director Ganesh Natarajan said: ``The brand value of the company has been growing fast worldwide due to the company's marketing thrust in training and software over the past few years.''

Infosys has adapted the generic brand-earnings-multiple model to value its corporate brand. To arrive at the value, Infosys had determined brand profits by eliminating non-brand profits from total profits, restate historical profits at present-day values, provided for remuneration of capital to be used for purposes other than promotion of the brand and adjusted for taxes.

Industry analysts said brand-strength multiple is a function of a multitude of factors like leadership,stability, market, internationality, trend, support and protection.

Aptech's Natarajan said the company is open to take marginal equity stakes in e-commerce ventures in India as part of its growth plans. However, Aptech is averse to take over portals since the valuation of such portals has been high in the country.

The company has earmarked $20 million to acquire a couple of software companies in the US. The company is expected to make an official announcement within the next six months. Aptech would also expand its manpower to 750 from the present 394 in a phased manner. ``We are not planning to spin off our software division into a separate subsidiary,'' Natarajan added.

Aptech has tied up with WiproNet (to be the Application Service Provider) and Lotus Learning (to provide the development tools) to build a portal offering online training to both students and corporates in India and overseas. ``We are planning to focus on computer training, management and other software skills through our OnlineVarsity,'' he added.

``We are positioning as the leading nation-wide brand in multimedia education. The high demand for Aptech multimedia courses led to a 40 per cent increase in number of new centres offering Arena courses,'' Natarajan said.

The global software solutions group of the company has set up two dedicated offshore development centres for overseas petroleum majors located in Asia and Europe to offer web-enabling services.

Aptech's electronic commerce centre in Bangalore has already entered into an alliance with IL&FS-funded company IPF On Line to build an electronic market portal for the manufacturing industry.