Bangalore: SAP, the world's leading provider of e-business software solutions, on April 22 said that it proposed to invest 23 million Euro this year in its operations in India, where it has planned to recruit an additional 230 software engineers by the end of next year.

The budget for India was up by 2 million Euro for 2002 from 21 million Euro in the previous year, Udo Urbanek, co-director of SAP Labs India, part of the company's global research networks, told reporters.

"We plan to increase the head-count in SAP labs India (based in Bangalore) from the present 520 to 750 by next year-end," he said.

It was noted that SAP Labs India being the development centre for Asia Pacific, was involved in product localisations to suit the legislative requirements of countries across the region.

Meanwhile, SAP Labs India announced "mySAP" technology, which, it said, has further opened its web services architecture with native support for open technical and business standards, he said.

For easy integration of web services in platform-specific environments, SAP has proactively integrated third-party infrastructure technologies, including Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere.

"SAP provides a business-driven native web services infrastructure with the instant open integration capabilities to drive collaborative business at low cost of ownership," said Peter Zencke, executive board Member, SAP AG.

PTI