Ampersand Software To Merge With Baysoft

The first merger in the high-tech software industry in India became a reality on Thursday when Bangalore-based Ampersand and Baysoft announced plans to merge their two companies in India and the US.

Ampersand Software Applications Ltd and Baysoft Pvt Ltd said the merger was aimed at creating a globally competitive Indian software company. The new company is expected to be known as Ampersand-Baysoft Company Ltd.

While the subsidiaries of these two companies in the US have already merged, the process might take as long as ten months in India to complete, the two companies said.

Ampersand, which has a fully equipped software development centre in Glendale California, together with its associate company Ampe-rsand Baysoft Corporation of Glendale, US, will comprise a global software development organisation.

According to Narasimhan Mandyam, managing director, Ampersand, the merged company consolidates into one US office.

The new company also plans to come out with a public issue within 18-24 months.

The merger will be finalised on the basis of stock swap but details of which are not known immediately.

Board members of both the companies will continue their presence in the new set up,

Ampersand and Baysoft said they had complementary shrink-wrapped products: a financial accounting package called Amon and a payroll package called Baypay.

With the planned integration of Amon and Baypay, the new company will offer a complete accounting, inventory and payroll packages. These products will be marketed in Asian countries.

Ampersand focuses on developing and marketing business products on Microsoft Windows NT and other client/server environments for customers in Asia, Europe and North America. It has recently launched its Amon series in India.

Bangalore-based Baysoft is focussed in the newer technologies such as object-oriented design and development in a client-server environment. Its current areas of market and application focus are business process automation, instrumentation, embedded software and networking.