The darling, of course, is Infosys, which has already outlined plans for an American listing.

Having lost out to some aggressive marketing by Nasdaq for the past three years, which seems to have won Indian technology companies' trust, the NYSE has decided to launch a major counter-offensive.

Later this week, NYSE Asia Pacific vice-president (international listings) James E Shapiro will descend on Bangalore to "clear out several misconceptions" about the strength of NYSE with some aid from the CII.

The second step is to set up an Asian office in Tokyo, to be headed by Shapiro, to focus on wooing Indian software companies toNYSE.

"Last year, over a 100 companies moved from Nasdaq to NYSE. International companies that have come to NYSE have got greater visibility and this has led them to grow. But, this does not mean that the NYSE is a big-boy only exchange. Indian software companies have a large following among US investors and we would be more than happy to have them over," said Shapiro.

"Despite Microsoft and Intel being listed on the Nasdaq, we still dwarf the exchange in all aspects of listing and trading of technology companies," he said.

"Apart from raising fresh funds, a listing on the NYSE would also help them to acquire US companies through stock swaps. There are several misonceptions in India about making an ADR - that the disclosures are far more stringent than in the case of GDRs. The fact is that if you can provide two annual financial flows in keeping with the international and US accounting standards, you can easily be listed at the NYSE," Shapiro clarified.

There is a new attitude at the SecuritiesExchange Commission now - it is less bureacratic, more sensitive to confidentiality issues and more user-friendly.

And even though the NYSE prefers to list companies that are listed back home as well, Shapiro said that in specific cases this is relaxed, hinting that some Indian companies which are not listed here may be able to get NYSE listing.

The battle for figures is also set to dominate the scene over the next few days with both sides arming themselves with interesting statistics.

While Nasdaq president John Wall talked of how 54 per cent of all equity trades in US are carried out through Nasdaq, Shapiro said that this was purely in terms of the number of trades which in the case of Nasdaq were calculated differently. "Being a dealer-driven exchange, each deal is counted as two trades," he said.

On the other hand, the NYSE says it is five times larger than Nasdaq and that NYSE companies represent 82 per cent of the US public equity market. It also claims to be an undisputed leader in the tradingof non-US stocks on US markets.

Nasdaq, on the other hand, stresses on the technological upgradation at the bourse. This is reflected in the fact that 20 per cent of the trading volumes come via the Internet. "We have built linkages and are planning to connect to other markets to enhance our strength further," Wall said.