SAP to hire 1,300 people in Bangalore during 2005.

German software maker SAP AG said on Tuesday that it would add close to 1,300 software professionals for its India operations during 2005.

"We will be adding 1,300 people — 800 developers in R&D and 500 people in services and consulting next year," SAP AG Board Member Peter Zencke told reporters in Bangalore, after announcing its India initiatives for SAP NetWeaver, the firm's new application and integration software at the technology meet for the company.

SAP has invested over 48 million US dollar in building two phases of its campus here, the largest outside Germany that currently employs 1,300 people and aims to reach a total strength of over 3,000 by 2006.

Zencke said that SAP is hiring more people here due to the excellent results shown by the Indian team, besides the country and China emerging as one of the largest markets for its enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

He said the NetWeaver software helps in building applications on ERP packages of rival firms like Peoplesoft and Oracle and SAP was eyeing customers of these firms for the new software.

Zencke said 200 people were working on the NetWeaver software in India, which will be ramped up to 600 in two years.

"There are many Peoplesoft customers who are concerned about the future. We can integrate our software into existing Peoplesoft installations and then improve further step by step," he said.