Oracle joins Indian pilgrimage

Oracle has pledged to follow the high-tech pilgrimage into India, promising to invest an extra $50m over the next 18 months and increase its development squad in the country.

The world's number one database company will double the number of developers at its sites in Bangalore and Hyderabad to 1,200, claming the technology recession has not taken hold in India yet.

"There's no downturn here. Oracle is instead looking at shifting more work to India," Rajan Chak, executive director at Oracle's Indian Development Centre told Reuters.

Chak added that the company would be increasing the breadth and depth of the work handled in the country. Oracle will also increase the number of support and consulting staff based there.

Community leaders in Bangalore, India's undisputed IT capital, have launched a concerted effort to attract more high-tech investment from overseas. They point to an 80,000-strong army of software engineers and the low cost of labour and real estate as a major attraction to their city.

Tech giants like IBM and Sun Microsystems have already taken advantage of the cheaper costs.

But Q4 financial results from local companies have shown even the Indian market to be vulnerable to economic instability, with software high-flyer Infosys warning its growth could be slowed by up to two-thirds this year.