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Big
Deals
HP
has bagged a 10-year information technology (IT)
managed services contract worth $ 3 Billion from
The Procter & Gamble Company. The companies
are expected to reach a definitive agreement in
mid-May 2003. P&G Global Business Services
selected HP after a comprehensive and competitive
process that included major IT services providers.
HP
Services will manage P&G’s IT
infrastructure, data center operations, desktop
and end-user support, network management and some
applications development and maintenance support
for P&G’s global operations in 160
countries. Approximately 1,850 P&G employees
from 50 countries will transition to HP Services,
mostly from P&G"s Global Business
Services unit.
HCL
Technologies has won a business process
outsourcing (BPO) deal worth $160 million from the
BT Group, UK
's telecom service provider.
According
the HCL Tech officials this five-year contract was
the largest deal ever bagged by any Indian BPO
company. The company would set up an exclusive
contact centre for BT, from where its employees
would handle part of BT's business telemarketing,
billing and conferencing work. BT officials would
manage the centre, which is to have over 1,000
employees by the end of 2003 according to the
Chairman of HCL Tech.
The
diverse nature of the assignments would entail a
broad profile of professionals, including service
executives, high-end data analysis experts and
software engineers. BT's site managers will work
with HCL Tech BPO team to ensure adherence to its
standards of delivery performance and customer
experience. HCL Tech had earlier acquired a 90 per
cent stake from BT in Apollo Contact Centre in
Belfast
to form the joint venture, HCL Tech NI Ltd. The
formation of this joint venture, the company said,
provided it with a European bridgehead and
capability to prove multi-lingual services.
IBS
Software Services based at Technopark,
Thiruvananthapuram has bagged a big contract from SITA, a leading provider of information and
telecommunications business solutions to the
airline, travel and logistics industries.
The
project has several phases and involves the
management of complex data sets and text being
generated from bits and bytes. The product is
known as Airfare Plus Automated Rules System and
is scheduled for delivery in the second quarter of
2003.
IBS has already signed a contract for developing a
new generation cargo handling system for Mercator,
the IT arm of the Emirates Airlines Group, at a
cost of $4 million. It also won a contract from
Sharjah's department of sea, ports and customs for
implementing a complete port management solution.
In March 2002, IBS had entered into a $1.5 million
contract for supply of transportation and
logistics solution to Gulf Share, a consortium of
oil companies operating in the
Gulf of Mexico
.
The contract with SITA is expected to strengthen IBS
Software’s position as a leading provider of
software solutions to the airline industry.
Mergers,
Acquisitions and Joint Ventures
Domestic
News
Wipro has entered into an agreement to acquire
NerveWire, Inc, a
Newton, Massachusetts-based business and IT
consulting company serving financial services
clients, for approximately $18.7 million in cash,
subject to adjustments. The transaction is
expected to complete during the quarter ending
June 2003.
In the last 12 months Wipro has built momentum in their financial
services business through marquee client wins and
the team of 90 plus consultants from NerveWire are
expected to bring in deep domain knowledge and
strong customer relationships.
iSeva, an eCRM company headquartered in
Texas
but operating out of India' s
tech capital, plans to acquire a call centre in
the U.S
in a bid to offer a greater comfort level to its
American clients.
They are looking for a 1,000-seater in the
US
for acquisition. The ISO-9001 certified call
centre, apparently the first in India to get such
certification, has been servicing U.S. and
Britain-based customers, providing voice and
web-based support for financial services and
technical support for software product companies.
Telecom
major Bharti Group has forayed into the upcoming
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) space by
announcing a 50:50 joint venture with TeleTech
Holdings Inc of US for offering customer
management solutions.
The
new joint venture company of Bharti TeleTech Ltd
and Teletech Holdings - TeleTech India - would
have an investment of Rs 100 crore over the next
12 months and would start operations in the second
quarter of the current financial year.
The first facility at Gurgaon (Haryana) would have
over 500 seats with a capacity of employing 5000
people in the next three years. The
company is expected to offer the entire spectrum
of BPO services ranging from back office
administrations including credit and collection,
account maintenance, application and claims
processing, asset management and infrastructure
support services.
International
News
Motorola
has entered into an agreement to acquire Winphoria
Networks and plans to integrate it into its Global
Telecom Solutions Sector (GTSS) business unit in
an all cash transaction. The completion of the
acquisition is subject to customary closing and
regulatory conditions and is expected to occur in
the second quarter.
The
acquisition is expected to provide Motorola with
additional capability to deliver on its strategy
to provide complete networks to support operators_
2.5 Generation (2.5G) -- 3rd Generation (3G)
systems worldwide. GTSS will increase its
technology capability, enabling it to develop
better choices for cost-effective, enhanced
featured mobile switching center solutions.
Internet
search company Google Inc. has acquired Applied
Semantics, a company that makes software that
analyzes the content of websites in order to match
them with appropriate advertising.
The
acquisition was the largest for the
California-based Google, which was founded in 1998
and operates the most popular search engine on the
Internet. However the terms of the deal were not
disclosed the purchase of the speciality software
provider is expected to boost the revenues of
Google as it is expected to expand its offerings
in online advertising.
Cadence
Design Systems, Inc. has signed a definitive
agreement to acquire Get2Chip, provider of the
world’s most advanced nanometer-scale synthesis
technology to top chip and system design
companies. Cadence plans to integrate Get2Chip’s
technology into its market-leading Cadence®
Encounter platform for digital integrated circuit
(IC) design.
Get2Chip’s
patented core technology, called "global
focused synthesis," provides the industry’s
highest synthesis capacity and performance, and
produces superior logic and interconnect
structures for nanometer-scale physical design. It
complements the existing Cadence synthesis
solution and extends the company’s lead in
delivering the best wires for nanometer-scale
designs.
Get2Chip’s
synthesis technology has already established
significant customer successes and has been
adopted by the world’s leading producers of
processors, graphics and networking chips.
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Volume 4
