After TCS, Oracle to set foot in Kerala

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - It is now official — software and hardware systems company Oracle would be the next IT major to set up shop in Kerala, a top IT official said here Friday.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a state IT official said the decks have been cleared and Oracle is arriving to set up shop in the state capital.

“The question now is the scale of their operations — if it is going to be a big one or a medium-scale operation,” said the official.

Headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, Oracle Corporation specialises in developing and marketing enterprise software products — particularly database management systems.

As on July, they employed more than one lakh professionals across the globe.

Oracle officials held talks with officials here and the details are likely to be known after the local bodies polls are over Oct 27.

“Oracle has been confirmed and another IT major which we are expecting to get a favourable decision to set up shop here is IBM. With TCS already signing up early this month to set up their biggest training centre at the proposed Technocity campus near Technopark, IT initiative for the state is moving in the right direction,” said the official.

Last week, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan handed over to TCS the government order allotting them 82 acres of land to set up their training centre which would have facilities to train 15,000 professionals.

If it was Technopark which led from the front of being the most sought-after IT destination since it began operations in the late nineties, Kochi, the commercial capital of the state, was the second destination which the state government decided to earmark for IT development by opening the Infopark IT campus.

And during the present Left government, besides expanding the IT campus at Technopark and Infopark, it also gave the green signal to set up IT Cyber Park in Kozhikode, for which work has begun.

Both the Technopark and Infopark campus have a record 40,000 professionals working in more than 200 IT companies.

The only blot in the efforts to promote IT as the major industry after tourism is the deadlock in the talks to resolve the issues between the government and Smart City Dubai, who are contracted to build the proposed Rs.1,500 crore Smart City Kochi IT project, which is hanging fire for the past three years.