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Wipro Technologies, the third largest software services exporter from India, is finally being unveiled. Wipro chairman Azim Premji’s elder son, Rishad Premji, is joining the company, through as an employee. Rishad will be joining the company in July end to long term speculation.

Wipro stated in a formal an-nouncement that Rishad Premji is going to join Wipro Technologies at a level commensurate with his background and experience. Wipro also stated that his joining had been approved by the board and was subject to shareholder approval.

Persons familiar with the company said there is no prescribed retirement age for the chairman. The tenure is decided by the nomination and corporate governance committee of the board that comprises external directors.

Rishad Premji is believed to be studying management at Harvard University after brief stints with a few companies including General Electric. The younger son, Tariq is involved with Azim Premji Foundation which was set up with financial resources contributed by Premji.

Premji had said then that his sons might not even join Wipro Corporation. He said that there was a lot of talent within Wipro Corporation. He also said that they we identify at least two potential successors. He added that he had no immediate plans to hang up his boots.

He had then said that Wipro Technologies has a powerful succession plan in place for the top 10 percent and bottom 10 percent of employees, those who have put in five years and those who are critical for the company.

German IT company SAP is betting big on the SME sector. Having seen huge traction in this business and crossed the 1 billion Euro software revenue mark in Asia Pacific and Japan in 2006, the company has now created a focused team including hub SME leaders, GTM, operations and enablement leads for the region.

The target is to touch 2 billion Euro software revenues by 2010 from SMe business in this region.

Stephen Watts, SVP, SAP Asia Pacific and Japan’s SME organisation said that they expected a 3X kind of growth across countries in the region in the SME business, which already accounts for about 50% of the revenues from Asia Pacific and Japan.

More than two-thirds of SAP Asia Pacific and Japan’s 2000 new customers in the first quarter of 2007 were SMEs. In 2006, SAP Asia Paciffic had announced its plans to more than triples its SMEs customer base by 2010.

India will be a big contributor to SAP. SAP India sees around 30% of its total revenues coming from this segment and hopes to increase the contribution to 40% in 2007, said Deb Deep Sengupta, SME leader, SAP India. He also said that education should also be key.

SAP India has plans to train about 30000 people through its education partners to work as SAP consultants for the SME segment by 2010, Mr.Sengupta said. Currently there are about 12000 SAP consultants catering to this segment in India. The company has launched 35 new centres through partners for e-learning in class B and C cities.