Interwoven Ups Asia-Pac Presence

Interwoven , a maker of enterprise content management software, has opened an office in Mumbai, India, as it wins customers in the country and region.

“This investment reinforces our presence in the (Asia-Pacific) market,” said Anurag Srivastava, a vice president with the Sunnyvale, Calif., company.

Interwoven has about a dozen customers in India, including Genereal Electric, India Tea Board and Asian Paints. It has also recieved orders through IBM and other partners.

In coming months, it plans to focus on landing customers in the financial services and telecommunications sectors. Sunil Chaven, Interwoven’s former sales manager in Singapore, will be in charge of the effort.

IT researchers are also bullish on India, not only as a source of outsourced programming service, but as a market for product. IDC recently touted the country as one of five key growth markets for IT and communications, estimating that content applications for 2002 was around $13 million and is expected to hit $52 million by 2007.

The push into India is the latest Interwoven move to expand business abroad. In March, the company opened an office in Milan to better serve its European customers. On the continent, Interwoven provides content management for more than 200 enterprises.

A larger source of company expansion is Interwoven’s planned acquisition of iManage, which will give it a more complete product offering and help it better compete against Documentum and other rivals.

The $171 million cash and stock deal, announced earlier this month, is expected to close in the fourth quarter.