Andhra opens door for Infy

Andhra opens door for Infy
The Times of India

Hyderabad: With the row between N R Narayana Murthy and Deve Gowda escalating, the Andhra government has moved into top gear to woo Infosys to Hyderabad. The IT major already has a campus in Hyderabad’s hi-tech district Cyberabad, but the Y S Rajasekhara Reddy government is offering it land for a second. “Hyderabad is willing to host a larger Infosys facility,’’ a senior AP government official said.

IT minister Sabita Indra Reddy said an Infosys team has already met Rajasekhara Reddy and sought about 100 acres of land. “We have agreed,” the minister confirmed. An announcement is expected within “ten days,” sources said.

This possibility comes barely two days after Wipro signed a deal with the AP government to set up its second software development centre in Hyderabad “within 12 months”. Wipro has been allotted 100 acres of land at below-market prices.

An AP government team is likely to be active in Bangalore’s annual four-day IT event, BangaloreIT.in, this week to win Infosys and other companies fed up with the collapsing infrastructure in the Garden City. “We (AP) are hosting a dinner at the BangaloreIT.in on October 26. We will definitely have something to celebrate after that,” a senior official confided.

The land will be offered to Infosys at Maheswaram in the new 2,500-acre IT park-cum-special economic zone proposed near the being-built Shamshabad airport. In fact, Infosys would be offered ‘an anchor client’ status around which the IT ecosystem would be developed in the Shamshabad park.