India an important market for SAP

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The CEO of the world's largest enterprise software maker, SAP AG thinks India is the next big opportunity for software sales and feels that discretionary IT spends will not pick up before 2010.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Leo Apotheker, CEO, SAP AG spoke about SAP's vision for the Indian market and gave a status check on discretionary IT spends.

Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview:

Q: Could you share with us SAP's vision for the Indian market and why you are betting big here?

A: The Indian market for SAP has always been a very important one. We have a very important domestic market for us here in India with about 4,200 customers and we are adding more customers every day. We employ about 5,500 people here in India, which only indicates how important this market is for us, the third largest physical location of SAP.

And if you look at the Indian economy going forward, medium and long-term, it is an obvious statement to say that India is a very important market for any technology company and therefore also for SAP.

Q: What are your clients and partners saying in terms of revival of spend? What is the status of discretionary spending? Is that really back on track?

A: It is probably a little bit early to discuss that. Maybe that is something that we can see in 2010. Right now things are just stabilising, so it's a bit dangerous to make some prediction too much out. What I am interested in as SAP is not so much the total level of discretionary spending going up, or down. I think that SAP has a great capability thanks to the innovation we are bringing to the market, to capture higher share of whatever spending will be made available.

Q: Oracle your closest competitor has been very public in its criticism of Sun- where do you stand in its context?

A: As you know, Oracle has made a bid to acquire Sun. The EU had some questions. I have heard this morning that the EU has actually issued formal objections to some of the elements in that deal. The EU is very careful and extremely competent when it comes to making sure that the European domestic market is a highly competitive one. I have full confidence in the professional standards and high ethical levels of the EU. That is all I can say about that.