The latest companies to open offices in Austin: Tata Consultantcy Services, Asia's largest information technology consulting firm and the fourth fastest-growing consultantcy in the United States, and Silicon Perspective Corp., a leading supplier of front-end physical design solutions.Tata has opened an office at 1009 South Mays St. in Round Rock. The office will mainly serve as Tata's research and development center for developing Linux operating system technologies, working closely with Dell Computer Corp.

Tata could only find about 1,000 feet to lease in the city's tight real estate market, explains Christopher Hudson, regional manager of the Round Rock office. At some point, the company will relocate to larger offices to accommodate plans to increase its staff by 25% in the near future, he adds.

Silicon Perspective Corp. also faced obstacles in finding space, settling on space at 610 Brazos."The Austin market is fairly tight right now, so we shopped around for a while to find this space," says Michel Courtoy, vice president/marketing at Santa Clara, CA.-based Silicon Perspective. It too could only find 1,000 sf. Expansion plans hinge upon "how fast our business picks up in the Austin area," Courtoy explains.