SunGard sets up new Pune facility

SunGard Offshore Services, a subsidiary of the $4-billion SunGard, US "� a global leader in software processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector "� started its third facility spread over 50,000 square feet.

The new facility can seat 550 people. Harsh Barve, chief executive officer, SunGard Offshore Services, said.

"We currently have 580 employees here and plan to grow to 1,000 employees by January 2007," he said, adding "with this new facility, we now have a total capacity for 850 people and a campus outlay of 80,000 sq ft". Barve further said the company is planning another 50,000 sq ft campus to support "our expansion plans".

Commenting on SunGard's expansion plans, Mack Gill, president of SunGard Offshore Services, said, "We have been present in India since 1993 and are developing over 60 of our most advanced applications here. We further plan to add high-end business process outsourcing around our area of expertise in financial services and hosting and servicing abilities here."

It may be recalled that SunGard, which was a publicly listed company at NASDAQ was acquired by a private equity group led by Morgan Stanley in August 2005 for $11.3 billion, the largest buyout in technology firms.

Speaking of the premium that the investors paid for acquiring the company, Ron Lang, group chief executive officer of SunGard's Enterprise Solutions group said, "Our strength lies in delivering software as a service vis-a-vis delivery as a product or a license.

As such, we have built a stable model of revenue wherein 90 per cent of our revenues a year are recurring, and we, therefore, offer a highly predictable cash flow to our investors."