Meanwhile, EPAC, which recently entered into a joint venture with DSS group, plans to set up a development centre in Noida, said Mr S K Kak, director, E-Pac. The joint venture company also plans to hire 400 people in 2001 and double the strength in 2002. The company also plans to invest Rs 60 crore in the first year of operations and $30-$40 million over the next two years, said Mr O P Suri, director, operations, DSS Mobile Communications Limited.

Meanwhile, E-Pac will train and certify its implementation team through Oracle's applications training and certification, and this resourcing capability will be ready for deployment from April 2001 onwards, said Mr Kaul. These resources will have expertise in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM) Business to Business Exchanges (B2BX) and Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce). In addition, E-PAC will provide application sales resource and product development services based upon Oracle technology and applications platform.

This tie-up will help reduce the gap existing in consulting skills due to the surging demand for Oracle Applications, said Mr Shekhar Das Gupta, country manager, Oracle India.

"Asian companies are now no longer restricting themselves to their own countries; they are becoming Pan-Asia", said Mr Derek Williams, executive vice president, Oracle Corporation, Asia Pacific Division. "We need partners who can work across boundaries and leverage the Internet to work with such companies. E-PAC is building the infrastructure and the resource to address this need," he added.

Initially E-PAC and Oracle will target countries with a high demand for Oracle Applications and a shortage of quality resources for implementation. This includes India, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Peoples Republic of China. In India, E-PAC will work with Oracle Software India Limited ("Oracle India") to execute the implementation of this strategic tie-up throughout the sub-continent.