Satyam Computer, a top global consulting and IT services provider, will make Malaysia its largest software hub outside India with at least 2,000 employees by 2010, a report said Tuesday.

"In the next few months, the size (of Satyam's workforce in Malaysia) will grow to 500 to 600. In the next few years, it will grow to about 2,000 people," founder Ramalinga Raju was quoted as saying by the Financial Daily newspaper.

Ramalinga was in Malaysia to inaugurate Satyam's global solutions center.

It has 300 workers, mainly IT engineers, who support Satyam's operations in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the United States.

"In the past, we viewed off-shoring as India-centric, but we do not do it any more. We look at off-shoring as delivering through high quality workforce in lower-cost countries and Malaysia ranks very high in that pecking order," he said.