new york impressed by indias record in software californiabased oracle the worlds largest enterprise software company has charted out an aggressive growth plan in the country and expects to double its professional workforce in four years to deliver the best products and services india is a jewel in oracles crown its executive vicepresident for asiapacific derek williams said we have invested well in expanding our presence in india and plan to continue to do soit has expanded development facilities in bangalore and is in the process of acquiring over seven acres of land in hyderabad for expansion of its india development centre idcwilliams said that oracle valued the indian capability and we anticipate that the coming years will add strength and lustre to the everexpanding commitment demonstrated by oraclethe companys country manager shekhar dasgupta said we see the extension of our facilities in these two technologicallysavvy states karnataka and andhra pradesh as an important step in oracles continuing partnership with indiathe expansion in bangalore and hyderabad would increase the physical space threefold the company executives said was especially keen on picking up it personnel from among the over 250000 professionals that india produced each year like several other firms it is taking advantage of high speed and highly reliable telecommunications network to enable its professionals in various countries to work from their home turf it reduces the cost considerably as bringing them to the us would mean higher salaries oracle said that it would not force any employee to go back to india but would consider if someone decided voluntarilythe company had signed an agreement to acquire land for expansion of its facilities in hyderabad on july 31 but the terms have not been disclosed the planned hyderabad centre will be a stateoftheart world class development facility and will have employees primarily involved in ebusiness application development for oracles global customer baseon july 30 the company had inaugurated the second phase of its technology park in bangalore on 213000sq ft of space an 11storey building with a computer accessible library the bangalore facility it said houses three major oracle divisions oracles india development centre its india support centre and oracle solution services india is the only country to host three different business units of this size and scope outside the company headquarters in redwood californiaoracle was among the first software companies to set up shop in india in 1991 and in 1994 it established idc in bangalore to support its product software development four years later a second idc was established in hyderabadthe company has since expanded operations and now indian facilities are among the top in its asiapacific strategy oracles india development centres work on a full range of products database tools application services and ebusiness applications these included development product management maintenance quality engineering documentation and release the company said