Oracle may arrive at Technopark

Arjun Raghunath
The New Indian Express

THIRUVANATHAPURAM: Oracle, one of the global IT giants, is gearing up to spread its wings to God’s Own Country.
It is learnt that Oracle is planning to send a delegation to Kerala by the end of this year to take further measures in this direction.
The new developments are the outcome of a recent video conference attended by a delegation representing the State and senior officials of Oracle. While former Union Minister and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor led the State delegation, the Oracle team was led by its Executive Vice President Thomas Kurian.
During the video conference that lasted more than 30 minutes, Kurian indicated that a delegation from Oracle would be sent to Kerala by November to have a first-hand feel of the facilities available. ‘’Kurian, who directly reports to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, is also likely to take up the matter during the discussion on finalising the global development plans of Oracle which is likely to take place by November,’’ sources in the IT Department told Expresso.
Technopark Chief Executive Officer Mervin Alexander, who also took part in the discussion, said that things were moving in the right direction. ‘’We are quite hopeful over the developments. It seems that Oracle is quite impressed at the facilities that we are offering. Though they may not go for a full-fledged campus, we expect that Oracle would take a decision on setting up a unit in Technopark without much delay,’’ Mervin told this paper.
The video conference was held from the video conferencing facility of UST Global at the Technopark on August 13. The conference, that began by about 9.15 pm, lasted till around 10 pm. Thomas Kurian joined the video conference from Oracle’s headquarters in the US.
Ajay Prasad of the Trivandrum Development Forum was also present at the video conference.
Oracle, at present, has development centres at Bangalore, Hyderabad and Gurgaon in India.
Sources close to Tharoor said that Tharoor was also instrumental in attracting HCL to Technopark. HCL has already taken steps to commence its operations from here.
Mervin also said that there have been a lot of queries from several leading players in the IT and related sectors on the upcoming Technocity project.