IT services provider HCL Technologies has entered into a strategic alliance with the China-based eBaoTech Corporation, a provider of software and services for life and general insurance industry.
Under the agreement, HCL would work with eBaoTech to identify fitment of eBaoTech's products in select geographies, HCL said in a statement.
Moreover, the companies together expect to help insurance carriers and intermediaries adopt IT solutions that would allow them to gain better process efficiencies in a cost effective manner, it added.
"We look forward to working with HCL to create significant and tangible value for insurance industry to become much faster, better, most cost efficient, and more scalable," eBaoTech CEO Woody Mo said.
Premkumar S, Corporate Officer, (Global Business Sponsor - Financial Services) HCL Technologies, said, "We are very excited about our partnership with eBaoTech as part of our product partnerships portfolio and see a lot of potential across major focus markets. As one of the leading end-to-end specialist insurance solution providers in the industry, HCL is equipped to fulfill the industry requirements by combining with eBaoTech's insurance system software capabilities."
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
IBM, new openings
IBM to offer IT education tourism in India
IBM today announced the launch of an education programme that it said would enable IT professionals and students to come to India and receive IBM certified training here.
To avail of this offer, an individual needs to register for a course from the IBM Power and IBM System Storage Curriculum, the company said in a statement.
All visa formalities, tickets and accommodation requirements are arranged and facilitated by an IBM training partner, it said.
The IT education tourism programme, slated to start next month, is a unique initiative where IBM has partnered with Stratom IT Solutions, India to introduce IT education tourism as a package for global students and IT professionals.
IBM plans to target around 300 participants in India for a minimum of 30 days this year.
As part of the programme, IBM would offer a comprehensive portfolio of technical training and education services for systems designed for individuals, companies and public organisations to acquire, maintain, and optimise their IT skills, the statement added.
To avail of this offer, an individual needs to register for a course from the IBM Power and IBM System Storage Curriculum, the company said in a statement.
All visa formalities, tickets and accommodation requirements are arranged and facilitated by an IBM training partner, it said.
The IT education tourism programme, slated to start next month, is a unique initiative where IBM has partnered with Stratom IT Solutions, India to introduce IT education tourism as a package for global students and IT professionals.
IBM plans to target around 300 participants in India for a minimum of 30 days this year.
As part of the programme, IBM would offer a comprehensive portfolio of technical training and education services for systems designed for individuals, companies and public organisations to acquire, maintain, and optimise their IT skills, the statement added.
IT market, New Deals
Intelligroup eyes buyouts in US, India for $18mn
US-based Intelligroup Inc, a provider of strategic IT consulting, application management, support and implementation services with its global delivery centres in Hyderabad and Bangalore, is pursuing acquisitions in the US and India, which have the right set of competencies in the business intelligence (BI), infrastructure management and testing space.
“We are in talks with a couple of companies in the US and India – the markets where is are strong in – which would complement our enterprise resource planning (ERP) offerings. As on March 31, 2009, we have cash and cash equivalents to the tune of $18 million (approximately Rs 88.2 crore), which we intend to utilise to fund the buyouts,” Intelligroup’s president and chief executive officer, Vikram Gulati, told Business Standard, while declining to draw any time line for closing the deals.
Intelligroup had, in 2007, acquired IGS Novasoft, a UK-based company, which had a good SAP implementation methodology, for $3 million (Rs 14.7 crore).
Stating that the company would stay focused on life sciences, consumer products, discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing and insurance verticals, Gulati said they were also looking at tapping the renewable energy space. “The US government’s plans to earmark a $15-billion spend every year for renewables hold maximum promise for us. We are still awaiting that money to start trickling down,” he added.
Intelligroup currently has six US clients in the renewable energy space – including Ausra, which develops and deploys utility-scale solar technologies to serve global electricity, SumPower that manufactures high-efficiency solar power solutions for residential, commercial and power plant applications, and solar technology company Miasole – together contributing about 5 per cent to its overall revenues
The US market, Gulati said, at present contributes 75 per cent, while Europe and India account for 10 per cent and 5 per cent respectively and the rest flowing in from other geographies like Japan. “We clearly want to derisk the US. Europe will grow faster this year,” he added.
Intelligroup, which follows a January-to-December financial year, reported a 19.7 per cent decrease in its revenues to $30.9 million (around Rs 151.41crore) for the first quarter of 2009, as compared to $38.5 million (Rs 188.65 crore) in Q1 of 2008. “Though it is clear that the full year 2009 will be a challenging period with revenue levels below those in 2008, we are on track to improve our operational efficiency and reduce costs to best manage our margins,” Gulati said.
“We are in talks with a couple of companies in the US and India – the markets where is are strong in – which would complement our enterprise resource planning (ERP) offerings. As on March 31, 2009, we have cash and cash equivalents to the tune of $18 million (approximately Rs 88.2 crore), which we intend to utilise to fund the buyouts,” Intelligroup’s president and chief executive officer, Vikram Gulati, told Business Standard, while declining to draw any time line for closing the deals.
Intelligroup had, in 2007, acquired IGS Novasoft, a UK-based company, which had a good SAP implementation methodology, for $3 million (Rs 14.7 crore).
Stating that the company would stay focused on life sciences, consumer products, discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing and insurance verticals, Gulati said they were also looking at tapping the renewable energy space. “The US government’s plans to earmark a $15-billion spend every year for renewables hold maximum promise for us. We are still awaiting that money to start trickling down,” he added.
Intelligroup currently has six US clients in the renewable energy space – including Ausra, which develops and deploys utility-scale solar technologies to serve global electricity, SumPower that manufactures high-efficiency solar power solutions for residential, commercial and power plant applications, and solar technology company Miasole – together contributing about 5 per cent to its overall revenues
The US market, Gulati said, at present contributes 75 per cent, while Europe and India account for 10 per cent and 5 per cent respectively and the rest flowing in from other geographies like Japan. “We clearly want to derisk the US. Europe will grow faster this year,” he added.
Intelligroup, which follows a January-to-December financial year, reported a 19.7 per cent decrease in its revenues to $30.9 million (around Rs 151.41crore) for the first quarter of 2009, as compared to $38.5 million (Rs 188.65 crore) in Q1 of 2008. “Though it is clear that the full year 2009 will be a challenging period with revenue levels below those in 2008, we are on track to improve our operational efficiency and reduce costs to best manage our margins,” Gulati said.
IT market, Outsourcing, Recession
Active client base of IT firms shrinks
Top Indian IT firms saw their active client base erode in the April-June period, on the back of project rampdowns and vendor consolidations.
In the case of Infosys, the number of active clients came down to 569, down sequentially by 10. Wipro’s active client base fell to 830 from 863 and that of TCS was down by 52 to 933. According to Infosys COO, S D Shibulal, the company added 27 new clients in the first quarter, even though the total client base came down. “Some clients will not figure in the list, if the business carried out with them is below a certain threshold limit,” he said.
During the quarter, project rampdowns saw contribution by Infosys’ top client by revenue, BT, come down below the $300 million mark. Top five clients accounted for 16.3 per cent of total revenues, dipping sequentially from 17.2 per cent. “In some quarters, revenue contribution from top 10 will be higher than in other quarters. This is not a secular trend, but is more situational. We are very focused on getting new clients and will continue this focus. There might be some additional work we have to do since the business environment is challenging,” said Shibulal.
For Wipro, the top five customers accounted for 11.4 per cent, up from 10.8 per cent in previous quarter. The number of new customers went up from 20 to 26, but down 31 from the first quarter of the previous financial year.
Wipro CFO Suresh Senapaty said that the company had not lost any customers, but some of them had fallen below the threshold of $150,000 per quarter in revenue run-rate and hence were not counted. Joint CEO Suresh Vaswani said that because of the focus being given to customers, many of them are becoming high value clients and are moving up into higher bands or giving larger revenue.
Jens Butler from analyst firm Ovum in his bulletin said this about TCS: “Maybe of bigger concern is the fact that only 26 new clients (and only 0.7 per cent of new revenue contributions, down from 6.9 per cent) have been added during the quarter (with contributions of less than $5 million), alongside a fall in its active client count to 933 from 985. This may be due to a focus on client retention in turbulent times, or possibly underinvestment in sales resources, or TCS’ unwillingness to enter into pricing wars. The likelihood is a combination of all three.”
Rajeev Mehta, IT analyst at India Infoline, said that too much should not be read into top IT firms losing out on active clients. “The recessionary pressures are still on, and this kind of thing could happen. Also, revenues from some top clients drop during a quarter and lose their ‘active client’ tag,” he said. “This will pass.”
Source: FinancialChronicle
In the case of Infosys, the number of active clients came down to 569, down sequentially by 10. Wipro’s active client base fell to 830 from 863 and that of TCS was down by 52 to 933. According to Infosys COO, S D Shibulal, the company added 27 new clients in the first quarter, even though the total client base came down. “Some clients will not figure in the list, if the business carried out with them is below a certain threshold limit,” he said.
During the quarter, project rampdowns saw contribution by Infosys’ top client by revenue, BT, come down below the $300 million mark. Top five clients accounted for 16.3 per cent of total revenues, dipping sequentially from 17.2 per cent. “In some quarters, revenue contribution from top 10 will be higher than in other quarters. This is not a secular trend, but is more situational. We are very focused on getting new clients and will continue this focus. There might be some additional work we have to do since the business environment is challenging,” said Shibulal.
For Wipro, the top five customers accounted for 11.4 per cent, up from 10.8 per cent in previous quarter. The number of new customers went up from 20 to 26, but down 31 from the first quarter of the previous financial year.
Wipro CFO Suresh Senapaty said that the company had not lost any customers, but some of them had fallen below the threshold of $150,000 per quarter in revenue run-rate and hence were not counted. Joint CEO Suresh Vaswani said that because of the focus being given to customers, many of them are becoming high value clients and are moving up into higher bands or giving larger revenue.
Jens Butler from analyst firm Ovum in his bulletin said this about TCS: “Maybe of bigger concern is the fact that only 26 new clients (and only 0.7 per cent of new revenue contributions, down from 6.9 per cent) have been added during the quarter (with contributions of less than $5 million), alongside a fall in its active client count to 933 from 985. This may be due to a focus on client retention in turbulent times, or possibly underinvestment in sales resources, or TCS’ unwillingness to enter into pricing wars. The likelihood is a combination of all three.”
Rajeev Mehta, IT analyst at India Infoline, said that too much should not be read into top IT firms losing out on active clients. “The recessionary pressures are still on, and this kind of thing could happen. Also, revenues from some top clients drop during a quarter and lose their ‘active client’ tag,” he said. “This will pass.”
Source: FinancialChronicle
IT market
IT firms speed up patent filing
Stepping up efforts to commercialise their intellectual property (IP), Indian IT services firms have accelerated their patent filing process. The top three firms — TCS, Infosys and Wipro — filed together over 150 patent applications in fiscal 2009.
Such a move is an important part of their non-linear growth strategy, where the companies are trying to de-link their revenue growth from the number of people added. This is expected to improve their profitability in a changing business environment.
Patent figures
While Infosys led rivals TCS and Wipro in terms of filing the highest number of patents in fiscal 2009, TCS was granted the most during the year. TCS filed for 58 patents in fiscal 2009 and was granted five — three in India and two in the US. Infosys filed for some 80 patent applications in the US and India and was granted two by the US Patents and Trademark Office. Wipro filed for 13 patents and granted one during the year.
“We have defined an IP strategy with a view to building an effective portfolio and plan to monetise going forward,” said Mr Ananth Krishnan, Chief Technology Officer, TCS. Despite setting up its first software R&D centre way back in 1981, TCS filed for its first set of IPs only in the early part of this decade.
However, with an IP strategy in place, TCS has stepped up its efforts. “We filed for more than 30 patents in the June quarter and currently have some 200 patent applications pending in various jurisdictions,” Mr Krishnan said. TCS managed to save $26 million (Rs 125 crore) through its R&D efforts in fiscal 2009.
Infosys has an aggregate of 200 patent applications pending in India and the US. “As part of our new engagement model, the focus has changed to commercialising the IP from merely developing it,” Infosys COO, Mr S. D. Shibulal, told Business Line recently.
The changed economic conditions, where customers have slashed their technology spending drastically, have forced even the smaller IT services firms such as KPIT Cummins to look at patenting their IPs.
“For the first time, we filed for eight patent applications in fiscal 2009,” said Mr Girish Wardadkar, President and ED, KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd. The company is looking to commercialise its IPs and leverage its knowledge assets, Mr Wardadkar said.
Such a move is an important part of their non-linear growth strategy, where the companies are trying to de-link their revenue growth from the number of people added. This is expected to improve their profitability in a changing business environment.
Patent figures
While Infosys led rivals TCS and Wipro in terms of filing the highest number of patents in fiscal 2009, TCS was granted the most during the year. TCS filed for 58 patents in fiscal 2009 and was granted five — three in India and two in the US. Infosys filed for some 80 patent applications in the US and India and was granted two by the US Patents and Trademark Office. Wipro filed for 13 patents and granted one during the year.
“We have defined an IP strategy with a view to building an effective portfolio and plan to monetise going forward,” said Mr Ananth Krishnan, Chief Technology Officer, TCS. Despite setting up its first software R&D centre way back in 1981, TCS filed for its first set of IPs only in the early part of this decade.
However, with an IP strategy in place, TCS has stepped up its efforts. “We filed for more than 30 patents in the June quarter and currently have some 200 patent applications pending in various jurisdictions,” Mr Krishnan said. TCS managed to save $26 million (Rs 125 crore) through its R&D efforts in fiscal 2009.
Infosys has an aggregate of 200 patent applications pending in India and the US. “As part of our new engagement model, the focus has changed to commercialising the IP from merely developing it,” Infosys COO, Mr S. D. Shibulal, told Business Line recently.
The changed economic conditions, where customers have slashed their technology spending drastically, have forced even the smaller IT services firms such as KPIT Cummins to look at patenting their IPs.
“For the first time, we filed for eight patent applications in fiscal 2009,” said Mr Girish Wardadkar, President and ED, KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd. The company is looking to commercialise its IPs and leverage its knowledge assets, Mr Wardadkar said.
HCL, New Deals
HCL Infosytems takes up project to disperse NREGA wages in UP
HCL Infosystems on Monday said it has undertaken a project with the Uttar Pradesh government to facilitate disbursement of wages to workers under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) project.
As per the project, HCL Infosystems would implement technology for issuing e-job cards to workers in Sitapur district of UP.
"We are sure that using technology will further facilitate on-ground implementation of NREGA and the benefits of this initiative will reach the right individuals and thereby multiply its impact on the society," HCL Infosystems Executive vice-president George Paul said in a release.
As part of the phase one of the project, 1,000 e-job cards would be issued, it said.
As per the project, HCL Infosystems would implement technology for issuing e-job cards to workers in Sitapur district of UP.
"We are sure that using technology will further facilitate on-ground implementation of NREGA and the benefits of this initiative will reach the right individuals and thereby multiply its impact on the society," HCL Infosystems Executive vice-president George Paul said in a release.
As part of the phase one of the project, 1,000 e-job cards would be issued, it said.
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