What's Happening In The IT Services Outsourcing Industry?

Markets and IT Services Industry Roundup - week ending May 29, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:34:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets scored big gains as investors think worst of recession is over, though many are uncertain about the speed of recovery
Better-than-expected consumer confidence index for May of 54.9, up from 40.8 in April, gave participants anecdotal evidence that economic conditions may be improving
Data showed that March durable goods orders rose, weekly Initial Jobless claims fell, continuing claims rose, and April new home sales climbed
Preliminary GDP showed 5.7% drop for the first quarter, which was a slight improvement from the 6.1% decline that had been reported in the advance GDP reading
Surge in crude oil prices lifted energy shares
Gold prices are now up more than 10% since hitting their 2009 lows in mid-April

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector stocks were up 4% during the week
IBM announced that it has provided U.S. Lumber Group with a business intelligence (BI) solution that is providing the company with in-depth reporting capabilities in real time versus their original system that provided reports daily.
IBM has won four 2009 SAP(R) Pinnacle Awards, provided by one of its global partners, SAP AG. The awards were granted to leading SAP partners that have excelled in providing high-quality products, solutions and services to mutual customers.
Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has unanimously approved changing the company’s place of incorporation to Ireland from Bermuda.
CSC has been named Vivek Chopra as President of the company’s India operations, effective immediately. Chopra replaces Rajendra B. Vattikutti, who is retiring.
CSC announced that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) awarded the company a task order to conduct scanning, indexing and file management operations at a records digitization facility. The contract has a one-year performance period and a value of $27 million.
Department of State (DoS) Bureau of Consular Affairs awarded CSC a task order to consolidate four legacy visa systems into one unified processing system. The task order has a one-year base period and four one-year options, bringing the estimated total five-year contract value to $36 million.
ACS announced an agreement to purchase UK-based Anix, an IT services and infrastructure solutions provider and wholly owned subsidiary of Xploite plc. ACS will pay approximately $50 million in cash upon completing the acquisition, which is expected to close prior to June 30, 2009.
TCS named N.Chandrasekaran, its present Chief Operating Officer, as the Chief Executive Officer designate and intends to appoint him as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer on retirement of the CEO, S. Ramadorai.
Infosys BPO has earned the highest rating, Level 5, for e-Sourcing Capability Model (eSCM-SP) by Carnegie Mellon University's IT Services Qualification Center
ICRA has retained its highest rating for corporate governance on IT firm Infosys Technologies, citing its transparent and disbursed ownership structure, among other reasons. The rating of CGR1 is the highest on ICRA’s Corporate Governance Rating (CGR) scale of CGR1 to CGR6.
HCL Technologies has emerged as the best managed entity in the list of top 50 global outsourcing vendors for 2009 compiled by the Black Book of Outsourcing , ahead of Indian IT services companies and global giants like Oracle. Other Indian outsourcing vendors in the list include — NIIT Technologies (20th), Wipro-Infocrossing (21st), Tata Consultancy Services (26th), Mastek (29th) and WNS Global(32).
Amerinet, a leading national healthcare group purchasing organization, has entered into an agreement that will make Perot System’s revenue cycle solutions available to Amerinet’s acute and alternate care site members
Wipro Infocrossing, a provider of managed infrastructure outsourcing services, and Sunoco, a manufacturer and marketer of petroleum and petrochemical products, announced a $34 million four-year contract extension and expansion of the companies' 13-year relationship.
Genpact was named Best ITO Service Provider and Best ITMS Provider during the recent Chinese Enterprise Informatization Top 500 Conference.
Huntsman has awarded a five year contract to Genpact to provide global accounts payable services to Huntsman’s operations across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

Markets and IT Services Industry Roundup - week ending May 22, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:39:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets closed the week in line with previous week’s close despite sell-off before the long Memorial Day holiday weekend
Housing starts during April came in at an annualized rate of 458,000, while building permits for April hit a rate of 494,000. Both marked record lows
Worse-than-expected jobless claims supported the premise that economic conditions remain tenuous. Initial claims for the week ending May 16 totaled 631,000, while continuing claims climbed to a new record of 6.66 million.
S&P Ratings revised its outlook on the U.K. to negative from stable
Debate around whether market's rounding action of past 2 weeks will turn into a correction or just a modest consolidation

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector stocks were down 1% during the week
IBM won a seven-year strategic agreement from Ferrosan, an international consumer & healthcare company in Denmark, to manage Ferrosan's IT infrastructure
Russian Railways, one of the largest railway operators in the world, announced that it is working with IBM to help optimize its IT infrastructure and is using new technologies to improve its freight and passenger management systems
IBM has been selected by Ling Tung University to build a smarter healthcare system to monitor the health of senior citizens in Taiwan anywhere, at anytime
IBM announced that Gartner has ranked IBM as the worldwide market share leader in the Portal Products and User Interaction Tools enterprise software segment
IBM & Bulgarian government announced their cooperation in nano-science & a deal for IBM to support the creation of what will be the first Bulgarian nano-technology center
Accenture has signed a three-year deal to provide Carlsberg IT with management consulting, systems integration, application development and maintenance, and programme management services in Europe
CSC announced that it is joining the Mission Support Alliance LLC team as a subcontractor on the Department of Energy’s recently announced award of a Mission Support Contract, which will provide site-wide services to support clean-up work at its Hanford site in southeastern Washington state
Infosys, TCS and Wipro have featured in the list of 100 best performing technology companies in the world, 'Infotech 100' list for 2009, compiled by BusinessWeek
HCL Technologies has entered into an outsourcing services engagement with MTV Networks (MTVN) to help MTVN brands in managing technology-led solutions in digital content creation, media asset management, community networking and cross-brand programming. The key benefits to MTVN from this engagement include platform standardization, reliability and business continuity during transition.
HCL Technologies has announced that ICRA has assigned an A+ rating to the Rs 5 billion Commercial Paper Programme of HCL Technologies. The rating indicates highest credit quality rating assigned by ICRA to short term debt instruments.
Atheeb Telecom, Saudi Arabia’s latest telecom service provider, announced its new five-year contract with Wipro to deploy an end-to-end IT solution covering operations support systems/ business support systems (OSS/BSS) and underlying infrastructure components.
EXL Services marked its 10th anniversary by formally unveiling a new branding and visual identity with the new tagline "Go Next. Now" encapsulating its DNA of ‘the Relentless Pursuit of Excellence’. It underscores EXL's commitment to consistently raise the bar through differentiated Transformational Outsourcing services that deliver a unique value proposition to clients.

Markets and IT Services Industry Roundup - week ending May 15, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:52:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets logged a weekly loss of 5.0%, its worst in two months, on profit taking following the market's record April rally
US trade deficit widened to $27.6 billion in March, which is the first time in eight months that the deficit widened
April total retail sales decreased 0.4%, and sales less autos decreased 0.5% as compared with consensus forecast for total sales to be flat and sales excluding autos to increase 0.2%. However, the decline wasn't as sharp as what was seen in March, when total sales slid 1.3%, and sales less autos declined 1.2%.
March business inventory data showed a 1.0% decrease in inventories, which was largely in-line with expectations
Continuing jobless claims climbed more than expected to a record high of 6.56 million. With jobless claims mounting, many expect consumer spending to remain challenged
April CPI met expectations by coming in flat, while Core CPI saw a stronger increase than had been expected by coming in with a 0.3% monthly increase
Industrial production for April fell 0.5%, which wasn't as bad as what had been expected, and capacity utilization came in at 69.1%, moderately better than what was expected
Media reports said the cost of borrowing between banks had fallen, offering a refreshing sign that credit conditions were loosening

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector was down 1% during the week
IBM has helped the Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia to roll out a new electronic health insurance card system across the country that enables healthcare providers to instantly and accurately check a patient's health insurance status and allows for health claims to be processed online.
HP Middle East introduced its latest Document Management technology, with the launch of products aimed at increasing efficiency and security of business-critical document workflow for companies in the Middle East
Accenture is reportedly about to open a subsidiary in India under a separate name with rates well below the premium-level pricing Accenture has traditionally charged, according to the Economic Times of India. As per the report, the new unit will bill at rates about 10% below the $27 or $28 hourly rate Accenture charges its clients.
CSC announced today that the US Army has awarded the company a task order to provide systems engineering, technical and program support for the Project Manager, Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems. The task order has a one-year base period and two one-year options, bringing the estimated total three-year task order value to $226 million
CSC was awarded SAP Global Pinnacle Award for its achievements in global information technology outsourcing on the eve of SAPPHIRE, SAP’s annual customer conference. The company also was recognized as a finalist in the customer satisfaction category.
ACS has been awarded a $37.5 million contract to assist the state of Louisiana to oversee construction and handle claims of eligibility for the Small Rental Property Program, an initiative to rebuild rental property damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
ACS will provide Medicaid fiscal agent services to the State of Virginia under a five-year, $84 million contract. Under the contract, ACS will assume operations of the state's existing Medicaid management information system and enhance the system with 24-hour access for transactions processing and improved online provider enrollment.
TCS obtained a five-year contract to provide information-technology support to Volkswagen Group UK Ltd.
TCS and Infosys announced separately that Forrester cited them as Leader in its April 2009 report "The Forrester Wave(TM): Global IT Infrastructure Outsourcing, Q1 2009”
Infosys Australia’s recently formed strategic consulting group bagged its first big-bank client, one of the big four in Australia, this month for a range of IT consulting services.
Infosys and Oracle today announced the completion of the implementation of a global Human Capital Management (HCM) system, based on Oracles PeopleSoft Enterprise, at Weatherford International Limited.
Equitorial Trust Bank, one of the leading indigenous banks in Nigeria, has signed Infosys’ universal banking application, Finacle, to replace their current legacy Globus banking application. ETB joins other banks such as Hatton National Bank in Sri Lanka in moving away from the Globus to Temenos upgrade track and pitching tent with Finacle.
HCL AXON, integrated SAP services division of HCL Technologies, announced that Jet Aviation has selected HCL AXON`s proprietary maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) solution, iMRO, to optimize the management of MRO operations within their existing installations of SAP solutions
HCL Technologies announced that it has built a hosted SAP infrastructure for MIsys, a provider of integrated solutions for banking, treasury and capital markets, which will deliver predictable and standardized SAP performance for Misys’ end-to-end users across America, Europe and Asia. The benefits of the solution to its users include scalability, flexibility and ease of deployment for SAP applications.
HCL Technologies announced that it has engaged with Rockwell Automation to achieve referenced status as part of the Rockwell Software Enterprise Solution Partner Program. During the initial membership phase, the companies will collaborate on the delivery and integration of Rockwell Automation software and solutions by HCL's Manufacturing Solution Experts.
Cognizant and SAP AG today announced a global services partnership in an effort to deliver increased business value by streamlining their engagement and enabling both companies to respond quickly to the ever-changing needs of their customers
Wipro and SmartOps Corporation, the leading provider of enterprise-class supply chain optimization solutions, announced the launch of their holistic Multi-echelon Inventory Planning & Optimization offering
Wipro announced that it has signed a $34 million information technology services deal with U.S.-based refiner Sunoco Inc
Wipro Infotech becomes the first 'Platinum Partner' from India for Hitachi Data Systems. This alliance will help enterprise customers across verticals avail of the wide range of services, consultation and storage solutions
Patni announced that it was named the 2009 ‘IT Supplier of the Year’ by Weyerhaeuser, a leading provider of integrated forest products

Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending May 8, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 May 2009 02:29:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets recorded another week of gains on more signs of economic stabilization
Investors who were waiting on sidelines have started to invest, as March saw the biggest sequential inflow of funds into mutual fund assets since April 2003
Government announced findings of its much awaited stress test on 19 major financial institutions and has instructed 10 institutions (Bank of America, Wells Fargo, GMAC, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Regions Financial, SunTrust Banks, KeyCorp, Fifth Third Bancorp, PNC Financial Services) to raise more capital
The latest ADP Employment Report estimated that 491,000 jobs were cut from private payrolls in April, which isn't nearly as bad as the 645,000 job cuts that were expected. It is also down substantially from the 742,000 job losses recorded for the prior month.
Government said non-farm payrolls shed 539,000 jobs in April, the fewest in six months and better than the expected decline of 600,000.
Pending home sales for March advanced by a better-than-expected 3.2% month-over-month
Construction spending in March increased 0.3% month-over-month, exceeding the 1.6% decrease that was expected
ISM non-manufacturing index rose to 43.7 in April from 40.8 in March
$14B auction of 30-year Treasury bonds was poorly received sending interest rates higher
On the negative side however, several prior months were revised lower, and the unemployment rate jumped to 8.9% from 8.5%, as expected
Oil prices continued to jump on the improving economic outlook
Markets also took cue from the news that Asian stocks marched higher following word that several Asian finance ministers ordered an emergency liquidity fund of $120 billion to be pooled and that China's second quarter GDP is expected to outpace that of the first quarter

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector shares was up 1% during the week
IBM announced the signing of a services agreement with Germany's Federal Employment Agency, Bundesagentur fur Arbeit (BA) to help the agency file, distribute, process and manage documents electronically
IBM has been selected by Taiwan government to help build a Smart Taxation Service System. The project, is expected to deliver significant cost savings through improvements in taxation processes, service delivery and by building a more cost- and power-efficient data center
IBM has been declared the leader for building innovation into large-scale outsourcing contracts as part of the Bathwick Services Index research, conducted by The Bathwick Group on prominent outsourcing vendors in Europe
HP and Research In Motion have entered into a strategic alliance to deliver a portfolio of solutions for business mobility on the BlackBerry platform. The solutions, which include support for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0, are focused on increasing service levels, reducing operations costs and improving productivity.
EDS, a HP company, is reported to be close to buying Fidelity's India-based IT operations for $150 million plus a long-term outsourcing deal from Fidelity, the world's biggest mutual-fund company. IBM had the inside track earlier this year, and Infosys, which has 3,000 people on the Fidelity account, could lose one of its largest clients.
Accenture received Global ISO 14001 Environment Management System certification from BSI for all its 53 locations around the world
Accenture Insurance Claim Components Solution has received the top score for ‘overall customer satisfaction’ in the Average Customer Experience Rankings report, published by Novarica, an independent research & advisory company focused on technology strategy for financial services & insurance executives
The U.S. Air Force has awarded CSC eight task orders to provide logistics and maintenance support to the U.S. Army Regional Aviation Sustainment Management. The task orders each have a one-year base period and a one-year option, and are collectively valued at $347 million.
CSC announced that it has signed a new 10-year $90-million contract with Wilton Re, a provider of life insurance and re-insurance, to provide a full range of business process outsourcing services.
ACS signed a 5-year, $84 million contract with Virginia Department of Medical Assistance to manage its Medicaid program
ACS has been named Employer of the Year by Horizon Goodwill for working with Goodwill to recruit, hire and train people with disabilities and other employment barriers
ACS said that BPO represented 95% of new deals; ACS, who currently maintains about 5,000 workers in India out of its total workforce of 74,000, also said that it aims to have 50% of employees in India (did not mention the time frame)
Infosys was among the 17 Indian firms that figure among the top 50 in the 2009 Reputation Institute Global 200 list of the world's 200 most reputable companies published by Forbes. Italy-based chocolate producer Ferrero was ranked as the most reputable company and IKEA was the second.
Cognizant reported first quarter 2009 results - Revenue of $746 million (+16% y/y; -1% q/q) as compared to $643 million in first quarter 2008; Net income and diluted EPS of $113 million and $0.38 in the quarter up from $102 million and $0.34 made in the same period last year; guides Q2 revenue of $760 million (+2% q/q) and full year revenue of $3.1 billion (+10% y/y)
Cognizant has signed a global strategic partnership with Temenos, a global provider of integrated core banking systems, to significantly enhance its service and delivery capabilities for Temenos’ T24 Model Bank
Perot reported first quarter 2009 results - Revenue of $621 million, a decrease of 9% year-to-year, over first quarter 2008 revenue of $680 million; Diluted EPS was $.24, an increase of 4% over first quarter 2008 diluted EPS of $.23; guides Q2 revenue of $620-635 million (+0-2% q/q) and diluted EPS of $0.23-0.25
Swan Telecom, majorly owned by UAE-based Etisalat, has shortlisted Wipro, IBM and Tech Mahindra, for an outsourcing contract estimated at $505 million
Genpact reported first quarter 2009 results – Revenue of $266 million, an increase of 13% from $235 million in the year-ago period (83% revenue from BPO and 17% from IT; GE contribution of 42% of revenue); net income rose to $30 million or $0.14 per share from $20 million or $0.09 per share in the previous year; guides 10-15% increase in revenue for full year compared to $1.05 billion of 2008
WNS reported fourth quarter 2009 results – Revenue less repairs of $96 million, an increase of 27% from corresponding quarter last year; net income of $2.4 million compared to $6.1 million from the corresponding quarter last year
Patni announced an Operational Fund Accounting Service designed to manage back-office functions for buy-side firms that ensure data consistency, accurate financial reporting, customer data security & privacy and freeing customers to build their businesses. Patni is currently managing back office accounting for 450 portfolio funds on behalf of customers within the hedge fund & mutual fund industries with more than $325 billion of assets under management.
EXLS reported first quarter 2009 results – Revenue of $41 million, a decrease of 8% y/y and 6% q/q; net income of $3 million compared with $7 million made in first quarter of 2008; diluted EPS down to $0.10 per share from $0.12 in the previous quarter and $0.16 in the corresponding quarter previous year

Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending May 1, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:56:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets closed higher during the week despite profit taking and end-of-the-month squaring of positions
Week began with the news of an outbreak of swine flu which gave investors an excuse to turn cautious
Factory orders for March declined 0.9%, worse than the 0.6% decline that was widely expected
ISM Manufacturing Index for April showed continued contraction at 40.1, though better than 38.4 that was expected, and was also up from 36.3 in March
Personal consumption climbed 2.2% after dropping 4.3% in the fourth quarter
GDP report indicated that U.S. economy fell 6.1% in the first quarter as against an expected fall of 4.7%. The economy contracted at a 6.3% in the fourth quarter. GDP has now fallen in three consecutive quarters. That hasn't happened in 34 years, since the third quarter of 1974 through the first quarter of 1975.
Hope for an economic recovery in the second half of this year helped prop up oil prices
Banks came under pressure as investors became a bit skittish after hearing that results from the government's bank stress tests won't be released until May 7, which is later than the May 4 release that was originally planned. Rumours suggest that the government's findings are not entirely positive
Federal Reserve left short-term interest rates at a record low and said the pace of economic contraction appears to be somewhat slower
Some of the selling in the week was tied to Chrysler's bankruptcy filing, which was no surprise but served as a reminder that many companies remain in trouble

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector stocks were up 6% during the week
IBM declared quarterly dividend of $0.55 per common share, an increase of 10% from last quarter. IBM has increased its quarterly dividend by 175 % since 2006. This is the 14th year in a row that IBM has increased its quarterly cash dividend. With this payment, IBM will have paid consecutive quarterly dividends every year since 1916.
IBM authorized $3 billion in additional funds for use in the company’s stock repurchase program. IBM said it will repurchase shares on the open market or in private transactions from time to time, depending on market conditions. This is in addition to approximately $3.7 billion remaining at the end of March from a prior authorization.
ABC Brazil Bank has signed an agreement with IBM in Brazil to implement a scalable modular datacenter, following Information Infrastructure best practices.
Amway GmbH and IBM announced they have renewed and expanded a €3.2 million outsourcing contract for three additional years. The expanded agreement provides an on demand model that enables Amway to flexibly adjust its use of IT resources to meet its business requirements
IBM and Atkins, a design and engineering consultancy group in the UK, announced a £14.4 million five-year managed data storage transformation agreement. The IBM solution will put in place the infrastructure and tools needed to manage the storage environment across the business.
IBM announced the opening of a Healthcare Industry Solution Lab in Beijing, where IBM will work with hospitals and rural medical cooperatives to make healthcare "smarter" as the Chinese government enacts widespread healthcare reform.
HP announced that Woolworths, Australia’s largest retailer and second-largest private employer, has chosen the HP Neoview enterprise data warehousing platform, along with HP consulting services, to increase operational efficiencies and improve insight into store operations.
EDS, an HP company, signed an agreement with Continental Airlines to enhance its EDS Flight Planning Services in order to reduce flight operating expenses and create efficiencies for Continental by automating some aspects of flight planning.
Accenture has been awarded a three-year consulting and IT services contract by Carlsberg, Copenhagen. Under the contract, Accenture will provide Carlsberg with management consulting, systems integration, application development, application maintenance and program management services in Europe.
ACS announced a 10-year extension to its exclusive agreement with TravelCenters of America LLC for truck stop scanning and document delivery services
ACS reported its fiscal third-quarter results - Revenues of $1.6 billion, up by 5% as compared with $1.5 billion in the third quarter of the previous year; Net income was $93.2 million or $0.95 per diluted share, up 13% as compared with $82.6 million or $0.85 per diluted share in the third quarter of last year
Infosys and The Co-operative Financial Services (CFS), part of The Co-operative Group, the UK's largest consumer co-operative, announced that CFS has chosen Finacle to power its business transformation initiative
Infosys BPO ranked 4th in the annual survey 'FAO Enterprise Provider Bakers Dozen' undertaken by FAO Today for 2008. The survey ranks top companies in the domain of Enterprise Finance & Accounting outsourcing, on parameters of breadth of service, quality of service and deal size based on customer rating.
Infosys has appointed KV Kamath, non-executive Chairman of ICICI Bank, India's second largest bank, as an additional director to the Infosys Board
Wipro won a $50 million IT services contract from Unitech Wireless, pipping rivals including IBM, Tech Mahindra and TCS. Unitech Wireless, controlled by Norway’s biggest telecom company Telenor, has licences to provide telecom services in all of India’s 22 telecom circles, but is yet to start operations.
Wipro decided to do away with the bonds, through which freshers paid a security deposit of Rs75,000 & agreed to work for a minimum of 15 months
HCL Technologies Ltd has been named as one of Britain's Top Employers 2009 by CRF International along with IBM, McDonalds & The Co-Operative Group
HCL Technologies announced that it has won a five-year contract from UTi Worldwide Inc, an international, non-asset-based supply chain services and solutions company. UTi has selected HCL as a strategic global partner for IT application & infrastructure operations, and management
HCL BPO, a division of HCL Technologies, announced the signing of a five-year deal with a Britain-based water utilities client
Syntel reported its Q1FY2009 results - Revenue for the quarter at $96.4 million, y/y decline of 7.9% and q/q decline of 2.1%; Net income was $27.3 million or $0.66 per diluted share, compared to $20.4 million or $0.49 per diluted share in the prior-year period.
Patni reported its Q1FY2009 results - Revenue for the quarter was $156.4 million as against $176.4 million in the same period last year, down 11 per cent; net income of $18.1 million in the quarter, a decline over 17% over corresponding quarter last year
Patni unveiled ‘Midflight Optimization’ offering for telcos, 70% of whom are having time & cost overruns in their ongoing BSS transformation programs & need mid-course correction. The solution will deliver mid-project correction savings of 30% of the entire transformation cost & expedite time to market by 25%
Patni has been ranked as No. 1 ‘Green Innovative Information Technology Vendor’ by 2009 Black Book Top Green Outsourcing Vendors Survey
Hexaware reported its Q1FY2009 results – Revenue for the quarter at $ 52.6 million, y/y decline of 21.5% q/q decline of 15%; Net income at $3.4 million, decline from $4.0 million made in same quarter last year
Tech Mahindra announced its fourth quarter results - Revenues of Rs10.5bn (-7%qoq, +3%yoy); Net profit of Rs2.3bn (3.5%qoq, 5.3%yoy)
The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) released the rankings for the fifth annual list of the world's leading service providers. Accenture and IBM were named to the top two positions for the second consecutive year in the Global Outsourcing 100. iGATE is 59 on the list.

Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending April 24, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:31:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Dow closed above 8,000 after starting the week off badly; NASDAQ ended positive
Existing home sales for March fell 3.0% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 4.57 million as against an expectation of 4.65 million units
New home sales for March came in at seasonally adjusted annual rate of 356,000, which was better than expected, but down 0.6% from an upwardly revised February data
March durable goods orders and orders excluding transportation declined 0.8% and 0.6%, respectively; both not as bad as expected
Government announced the details of its measures used for conducting a series of stress tests at 19 leading U.S. banks. Though actual results from the tests won't be available until May 4, the report acknowledged that most U.S. banking organizations currently have capital levels well in excess of the amounts required to be considered well capitalized. Meanwhile, Fed regulators generally assert that banks should be prepared for the worst.
Treasury Secretary Geithner spoke before a congressional committee on Tuesday that there was still about $109.6 billion available from the $700 billion rescue package passed last year, and he expects to get at least an additional $25 billion back, bringing the total to $134.6 billion
ECB President indicated that more rate cuts may be in order for the European economy, though such cuts would come in measures of 25 basis points

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector stocks were down 1% during the week
IBM announced Q1 results – Revenue of $21.7 Bn down 11% from 1Q2008; Net income of $2.3 Bn, or $1.70 a share, compared to $2.32 Bn, or $1.64 a share in 1Q2008
IBM and Equifax, a provider of information solutions, employment and income verification and human resources BPO services, announced that the companies have signed a contract amendment for IT services in the US, Canada, Spain and the UK. Under the agreement, IBM will provide data centre services including mainframe, midrange server, client service desk, network and business continuity and resiliency services for Equifax's operations
IBM announced a new services contract to transform and operate Unilever's Human Resources (HR) processes across 19 Latin American countries
HDFC Bank, one of the largest banks in India, announced an agreement with IBM to build a cost-effective IT framework that will support the bank's business growth. HDFC Bank is the first commercial bank in India to adopt the IBM mainframe & has joined the ranks of the world's top 50 banks that continue to run on System z technology.
EDS, an HP company, announced a 5-year technology infrastructure outsourcing contract with Mazda Motor Europe. Under the agreement, EDS will consolidate technology from Mazda’s data centers in Willebroek, Belgium, and Leverkusen, Germany, to centralized services in EDS’ data center in Frankfurt, Germany.
EDS, an HP company, announced a $245 million, 4.5-year agreement with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, under which EDS will provide system integration & applications modernization services to help increase availability of accurate and complete information so employees can easily monitor the effectiveness of department programs. EDS will create & manage the image capture, database, information storage & server environment where offender information will reside.
CSC announced the launch of its Federated Identity Management (FIM) offering, a solution designed to enable companies and organizations to establish trusted relationships with business partners & outside parties as part of its Trusted Identity Enterprise Suite, a portfolio of fully integrated, end-to-end identity management solutions.
CSC announced that it is expanding its industry-leading default management software-as-a-service, EarlyResolution, to include mortgage insurance eligibility requirements from Radian Guaranty of Philadelphia, Penn
TCS announced its Q4FY09 and full year FY09 results – Revenue of $1.4 Bn for the quarter, down 5.5% Y/Y & 3.4% Q/Q; Full year revenue at $6.02 Bn, up 6.8% Y/Y; EPS for the quarter of $0.27 compared to $0.32 in same quarter last year; Full year EPS at $1.15 compared to $1.28 in the previous year; Board recommend 1:1 bonus
HCL Tech announced its Q3FY09 results – Revenue of $564.4 million, a growth of 18.2% y/y & 11.3% q/q; EPS at $0.26 compared to $0.50 in JFM’08, a decline of 48% y/y
Wipro announced its Q4FY09 results – Revenue of $1.05 Bn for the quarter, down 4.9% Q/Q and up 1.4% Y/Y; Net income for the quarter was $201 million
WNS announced that it made a voluntary prepayment of $5 million on its existing $200 million term loan facility in early April 2009 as permitted under the loan agreement
Hexaware has formed a global partnership with Greenplum, a provider of database software for the next-generation of data warehousing and large scale analytic processing. While Greenplum will provide the database platform, Hexaware will enable the migration, implementation, upgrades and maintenance services on these platforms

Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending April 17, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:53:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets closed marginally higher after seesawing earlier in the week, allowing the market to score a sixth straight week of gains
Weak March retail sales data fueled profit taking in the market at the beginning of the week
Goldman Sachs announced a $5 billion common equity offering that will prove dilutive to existing shareholders, but is intended to help repay TARP funds. However, it was offset by a better-than-expected earnings announcement and a reaffirmed outlook.
March industrial production fell a more-than-expected 1.5%, while capacity utilization came in at 69.3%.
Consumer prices for March slipped 0.1%, but core prices increased 0.2%. Economists expected a respective increase of 0.1% and an increase of 0.1%.

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector stocks were down 1% during the week
The biggest news in the technology services industry last week was Tech Mahindra emerging as the highest bidder for Satyam @ Rs 58 per share for the 31% stake. Along with the 20% open offer Tech Mahindra will make at the same price, the 51% Satyam stake could cost Tech Mahindra at least $580 million
The Hokkoku Bank Japan has extended its strategic outsourcing contract with IBM for an additional 6 years and 8 months. As part of the agreement, IBM Japan will manage the operation and maintenance of the company's information technology systems.
IBM announced that Daishi Bank, Japan has extended its outsourcing contract for an additional 6 years. IBM will manage the operation and maintenance of the company's information system and the development and maintenance of its applications.
IBM announced an agreement with STAR India, a leading media & entertainment company in Asia, to implement SAP ECC 6.0 application for all major business processes
Jet Plastica, a leading manufacturer of foodservice disposables, has selected IBM to implement the Infor ERPLN Fast Start program and the Cognos Enterprise Reporting tool
IBM created a new consulting organization, IBM Business Analytics & Optimization Services, dedicated to the market for advanced business analytics & business optimization
IBM announced that it is establishing the first IBM cloud computing laboratory in Hong Kong. The new facility will provide a global hub for Web-based messaging services to support IBM's emerging LotusLive cloud service portfolio, which offers affordable, company-to-company social networking and online collaboration tools.
HP announced that it has signed a seven-year infrastructure services contract to reduce operating costs, improve flexibility and accelerate business growth for Celesio AG, one of Europe’s leading pharmaceuticals services providers
Accenture won a five-year IT outsourcing agreement from Scripps Networks Interactive, a developer of lifestyle-oriented content for television & internet, to provide application development & maintenance as well as infrastructure-management services such as data center, security, and network services.
Accenture won a five-year application outsourcing contract from BMW to consolidate its information technology processes. As part of the agreement, Accenture will help BMW consolidate a vendor network of its application operations service providers & to make overall IT processes more reliable, predictable and efficient.
CSC announced that the NASA Shared Services Center, a public-private partnership between NASA, CSC & the state governments of Mississippi & Louisiana, won the Best New Captive Services Delivery award from the Shared Services Outsourcing Network
CSC, established in 1959, is celebrating its 50th anniversary, marking five decades of delivering technology services across the globe.
ACS announced that it will be hiring 215 new employees – 180 in Lexington and an additional 35 in London – to positions for customer care agents, data entry, clerical and managers who are needed to respond to increased business.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has brought about 500 employees accounting for 10% of its UK workforce back to India, as a part of its cost-cutting drive.
Infosys announced its Q4FY09 and full year FY09 results - Revenue for Q4 of $1,121m, a decline of 4.3%QQ/1.8%YY and earnings for Q4 of $0.56, a growth of 1.8%YY; Revenue for FY09 of $4,663 million, a growth of 11.7%YY, and earnings for FY09 of $2.25, a growth of 10.3%YY. Infosys has guided Q1FY10 revenue of US$1,060-1,080m, down 3.6-5.4%QQ and 6.5-8.2%YY and fiscal 2010 revenues to be down 3.1-6.7%YY and fiscal 2010 margin to be down 300 basis points
A survey by Infosys of 139 of the its clients, representing 83% of its revenue revealed that IT budgets are being slashed this year, some by up to 10%.
Infosys sees over $1 billion worth of outsourcing contracts coming from the Indian market over next few years, as country’s government and state-owned organisations seek to become more efficient by outsourcing their IT needs
During the week, both Cognizant & Wipro announced being named ‘Leader’ in ‘The Forrester Wave(TM): Global IT Infrastructure Outsourcing, Q1 2009’ by Paul Roehrig, PhD
Perot Systems has signed an agreement with The Christ Hospital to provide revenue cycle services including billing, follow-up and certain customer service functions
Wipro Technologies CTO Vijaya Kumar laid out its strategy to enter the cloud computing market over the next three to six months
Wipro BPO has received the 'highest average rating' among Indian service providers from IDC for providing value-added business process redesign and management
Delta Air Lines, the world's largest commercial carrier after its merger with Northwest Airlines in 2008, said that it is pulling back 2,000 jobs from Wipro claiming customer dissatisfaction, after six years of having outsourced the call services

Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending April 10, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:02:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets remained range-bound expecting another downbeat earnings season on the horizon
Dow component Alcoa officially kicked off earnings season Tuesday evening with a deeper-than-expected loss
February wholesale inventories fell 1.5%
A better-than-expected earnings preannouncement from Wells Fargo sent the financial sector surging towards the end of the week
Retail stocks were up following strong earnings by a few retailers and better than expected same-stores sales for March by all retailers
Securities and Exchange Commission invited public comment on its proposed rules to curb short-selling

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector stocks were down 1% during the week; Sun Microsystems shed more than one-fifth of market cap in one session on news of collapse of merger deal with IBM
IBM announced that Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, Japan has extended its contract for an additional five years, under which IBM will manage the operation & maintenance of the company's mainframe systems
IBM signed a 4-year contract with Prague Airport to implement a system to enable it to collect and analyze information for the calculation of airport fees and handling charges
IBM announced that it has signed a five-year agreement with Sainsbury's, to transform the retailer's supply chain network
InSite One Inc, the largest cloud provider for medical image data archiving, storage, and disaster-recovery solutions in the US, has chosen IBM as the vendor of choice for its primary datacenter expansion and storage device upgrades
Accenture won a three-year contract from Carlsberg to provide management consulting, systems integration, application development, application maintenance and program management services in Europe
HP announced that Almac Group, a global pharmaceutical services provider in Ireland, used HP software to reduce the time required to put new drugs through clinical trials
The Information Store and CSC have signed an alliance agreement under which CSC will act as the prime systems integrator and consulting services provider
Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC), the body formed to set up a new statutory child maintenance scheme, has selected TCS to develop the new IT systems in the form of packaged software available off-the-shelf
TCS was inducted as the technology partner of Rajasthan Royals (RR), the IPL 2008 champion, to help the team's performance. Under the 3-year agreement, TCS will provide IT solutions to RR, on and off the field, in order to enhance the efficiency of the organization and help retain the IPL championship title for the second season
Rajasthan government-run power companies have appointed Infosys as IT consultant for implementing centre-funded Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (R-APDRP) in 87 cities across the state under the 11th Five-Year Plan
Satyam entered into a partnership with Pentaho Corp. to offer "On Demand BI (Business Intelligence) solutions" for customers on Pentaho BI Suite Enterprise Edition
Xerox Corp. will pay $100 million over six years to outsource data-center services to HCL Technologies. As part of the deal, HCL will manage disaster-recovery preparation for Xerox and consolidate the company's data centers in North America and Europe
HCL Technologies has bagged a 5-year IT services contract worth $170 million from Microsoft. HCL has become a strategic vendor for providing technology services to Microsoft for its online services business
Cognizant CEO Francisco D'souza announced that it is scouting for acquisitions to diversify its presence in the Asia-Pacific region
Doylestown Hospital announced that Perot Systems has successfully assisted the hospital's implementation of an advanced Health Care Information System (HCIS)
Perot Systems announced that it won a 3-year, $15 million contract within the Department of Defense, Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO)
Wipro announced that Wipro BPO has been recognized as the Best New BPO Locator of the year at the International ICT Awards, held recently in Manila
Wipro announced that it has implemented SAP ERP ECC 6.0 for HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL)’s refinery business in India
EXL announced the renewal of its strategic outsourcing relationship with Centrica, PLC (British Gas). Under the terms of the renewed contract, EXL will continue to provide comprehensive services including complex back office processes, debt management and analytics for an additional three year term through April 2012

Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending April 3, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:36:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets continued to grow as investors' hopes for an economic rebound rose giving the market its best monthly performance in six years
Stocks finished higher thanks to better-than-expected Construction Spending, Factory Orders, Pending Home Sales, ISM Manufacturing Index data
On the negative side, Composite Home Price Index, ISM Nonmanufacturing Index, and Consumer Confidence Index were all below expectations
Labor Department reported that 663,000 jobs were slashed in March, lifting the unemployment rate to 8.5% from 8.1%. The data were on par with expectations, though ADP Employment Report indicated that 742,000 jobs were lost in March
Financials welcomed FASB’s decision to ease mark-to-market accounting rules for banks though it was expected and already priced in
Stoking optimism was also the economic stimulus pacts reached by leaders of the G20

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector stocks were up 6.4% during the week
IBM won a multi-year agreement from Carphone Warehouse, Europe's leading independent mobile phone retailer. IBM will manage Carphone's infrastructure services across areas such as the service desk, servers, storage, desktop, network and data centers and 140 Carphone staff will move over to join IBM and Manpower
EnergyAustralia, Australia's largest electricity distribution network, entered into an agreement with IBM to implement an energy network monitoring & control solution
IBM announced the launch of LotusLive Engage, an integrated social networking and collaboration cloud service designed for businesses of all sizes enabling companies to communicate and collaborate in new ways without increasing the resources in their IT departments.
IBM received a 7-year $184 million extension of its technology services contract with National Account Service Co, to help process insurance claims for Blue Cross & Blue Shield
HP announced HP Cloud Assure, a new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering designed to help businesses safely and effectively adopt cloud-based services
EDS won a 12-year $586 million contract from the British Columbia Ministry of Labour and Citizens’ Services for hosting and data centre services
Accenture has signed a two-year, €100 million agreement with Banco Santander to support the bank's global operations by providing systems integration, consulting, business process management, information technology outsourcing and business process outsourcing
US General Services Administration (GSA) has selected Perot, CSC, among its vendors to support the IT requirements for Civil and Department of Defense agencies
CSC announced a five-year IT contract extension with leading retailer Kmart Australia, valued at approximately $25 million (AUD$36.4 million)
Department of Homeland Security's National Communications System (NCS) has extended its IT contract with CSC for two years valued at $56 million
CSC launched Virtual Desktop, the company's line of enterprise IT services designed to increase workplace flexibility & help customers respond to changing business demands
ACS won a $67 million, 7-year contract with Marin Healthcare District to provide consulting & outsourced services to Marin General Hospital, under which ACS will implement an enterprise-wide hospital information & EMR system, a full-scale outsourcing of the hospital’s IT dept & provide the hospital with complete revenue cycles systems
300 Satyam employees working on the Merrill Lynch project have accepted a rebadging offer to join Bank of America (BofA)
NEC and HCL have formed a partnership to develop a new enterprise content management product for the Japanese market
HCL has been rated as the country's best employer in the survey 'Best Employer in India Study 2009' conducted by Hewitt Associates, in partnership with Outlook
Cognizant has agreed to pay $509,000 as back-wages to 67 employees who went on H-1B visa to the US after the US Labour department found that Cognizant did not comply with regulations related to paying computer professionals hired under the H-1B program the proper wages
Pramod Bhasin, CEO of Genpact, has been appointed chairman of NASSCOM for 2009-10

Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending March 27, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:44:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets rose broadly during the week led by financials again amidst a bunch of positive economic data, though ended with profit booking on Friday
The rally was fuelled by the release of details on the Obama administration's plan to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets, better than expected home sales data, and in-line reports on Q4 GDP and weekly jobless claims.
US existing home sales rose 5.1% month-over-month in February, a dramatic jump over the expected drop of 0.9% and new home sales increased 4.7% month-over-month against an estimated drop of 2.9%
February durable goods orders increased 3.4% month-over-month compared to the expectation of a decline of 2.5%
The fourth quarter GDP showed a 6.3% annualized rate of contraction, which wasn't as bad as the 6.6% decline that was expected.
Weekly initial jobless claims climbed 8,000 from the prior week to 652,000 in-line with expectations. Continuing claims climbed more than expected to a record high of 5.56 million, though.
Rumors surfaced again that SEC is considering modifying its uptick rules

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector was up 1.4% during the week
IBM has set up the first electronic medical-record exchange for the US govt, whereby the system will give the US Social Security Administration online access to health-care records for disability applicants, cutting claim processing time to minutes from months.
IBM announced a new offering, designed as a completely outsourced turnkey solution, that enables mortgage loan servicers to process large volumes of loan modification requests with greater speed, efficiency and accuracy
HP has won a $50 million contract from Korea’s Shinhan Bank for a technology solution to help the bank improve its return on investment, enhance its business efficiency and expand its operations
CSC and the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) today announced the launch of the AORN SSPN, software content for perioperative care nurses that integrates into electronic health record systems & nursing documentation systems
CSC won a 3-year contract from United Utilities, largest water & wastewater operator in UK, to provide infrastructure services, system integration & system support
Accenture has helped Florida’s Office of Financial Regulation (OFR) implement a significant operational & technology upgrade on-budget and ahead of schedule. The 2-year project replaced more than 20 legacy information technology systems to provide OFR with an integrated financial regulatory management system
Accenture reported results for 2nd quarter ended Feb 28 - Revenues of $5.27 billion, a decrease of 6% year-on-year; Diluted EPS of $0.63 over $0.64 in Q2 last year; revised guidance of 0-4% growth in revenue for full year versus 6-10% earlier
Perot won a 5-year $7.5 million contract from NASA to provide engineering, technical & program management support to NASA's Office of the Chief Engineer
Telstra Corp. has ended one of its IT outsourcing contracts with IBM and has given it to Infosys; less than a week ago, Telstra had terminated its contract with Satyam and awarded it to EDS. This is part of its consolidation of its outsourcing partners from four (IBM, EDS, Satyam, Infy) to two (Infy, EDS)
Infosys has launched a program where it has its top employees an option to work with a non-profit organization for a year but continue to earn half their income.
WorkLight Inc and TCS have partnered to provide companies the ability to securely engage customers, partners and employees through consumer Web 2.0 tools
ATCO has entered into a strategic relationship with Wipro to provide joint delivery of some customer care services and to pursue new opportunities in the utility business process outsourcing market
Satyam won a contract to implement SAP(R) Business All-in-One solutions for Vijay Dairy & Farm Products, one of the leading dairy processors in India; meanwhile UN plans to terminate its outsourcing contracts with Satyam and to bar the outsourcer from bidding on future work
HCL has entered into a three year contract with MJ Logistic Services, a leading third-party logistics solutions provider in India
Patni announced signing two $10 million deals in Japan (one with Hitachi) in the recent past and said that it is witnessing increased traction in the region where it has close to 1,100 employees
ACS announced the transition of about 500 of its US employees working primarily in the IT services space to Patni

Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending March 20, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:50:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets lost the ground gained during the week by Friday, financial stocks being the largest mover again this week followed by commodities
Barclays said it had a strong start in '09, echoing similar comments made last week by C, BAC and JPM, while HSBC indicated that it does not need more capital
February housing starts hit an annualized rate of 583,000, up from record lows and above the rate of 450,000 starts that was expected. Meanwhile, February building permits hit an annualized rate of 547,000, which is above the 500,000 that was expected
Federal Reserve announced that it will pump an extra $1 trillion into the financial system by purchasing Treasury bonds and mortgage securities
Investors booked profits and turned more cautious on concerns that Fed’s injection of another $1 trillion into the ailing financial system could spark inflation in future

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector up 1% during the week as markets were not focused on the sector
Sun Microsystems surged 78% on report of IBM takeover bid
IBM today announced that Travelport has selected IBM to assist in the modernization and consolidation of its data centers into a single, Atlanta-based facility
HP today announced that Choice Hotels selected the HP Compliance Log Warehouse (CLW) 2.0, a software that provides real-time collection, storage and retrieval of network activity logs to detect unusual events that could lead to a security breach, to address regulatory demands and reduce risk to Choice’s business
HP, in partnership with Indian Institute of Hardware Technology announced the launch of ‘HP Software University’ (HPSU), a first of its kind program in the non-enterprise training space aiming to address the growing demand of software testing professionals in India
CSC won a $29 million contract for support services for the operation, maintenance, support and management of the OCONUS Navy Enterprise Network
Putting an end to about 8 months of waiting, TCS has finally decided to complete the process of bringing on board the campus recruits of 2008 by this month
HCL has signed a $350 million outsourcing contract with Reader's Digest, where HCL would provide application development and infrastructure support across the application stack of Oracle, open technologies, main frame, infrastructure support for network, security, storage, end user computing and data centres
Infosys is deploying about 10% of its 100,000 employees on internal projects involving writing programming code for human resource systems, invoicing systems, inter-departmental communication systems and training curriculum
Perot announced the 10-year extension to its agreement with Swiss Re, under which it will continue to provide ongoing administrative & business process services, including support for new Swiss Re acquisitions, customer service & transaction processing through Perot Systems LifeSys full service policy administration platform
Genpact announced that it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the Challengers quadrant of its ‘Magic Quadrant for Help Desk Outsourcing, North America’
Wipro announced implementation of Oracle eBusiness Suite (EBS) 11i with multi lingual support in both in English and Spanish for Flex Americas (subsidiary of Uflex Ltd, India) in Mexico
Wipro has won a major contract with the University of Canberra to handle its IT, student admission, payroll and finance functions
The Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), has signed a Rs 1,182-crore contract with Wipro for converting its paper-based administrative and operational system into a paperless E-governance system
HDFC Mutual Fund has raised its stake in Patni Computer Systems to 5.18 per cent by acquiring additional 50 lakh shares for about Rs 55 crore from the open market
On Mar 20 Fitch Ratings withdrew its AAA ratings of Tech Mahindra stating the uncertainties regarding TML’s Satyam bid; On Mar 21 Tech Mahindra announced that CARE has assigned its highest credit rating of AAA to TML

Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending March 13, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:59:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Markets recovered over the week, after falling below 7,000 first time since 1997, driven by financial stocks
Rally was triggered by Citi when they said that it was profitable in the first two months of '09 and would not need additional funds from government; JPM & Bank of America also stated they were profitable for the 2 months

Reports also surfaced that US regulators are considering reinstating the uptick rule to slow the pace of short selling
February retail sales declined 0.1%, better than the 0.5% decline that was expected
Economic reports showed a slight rise in consumer sentiment and a narrowing in the US trade gap

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector up 6% last week as markets recovered
Accenture ranked 49 among the most admired companies in twelfth annual rankings of FORTUNE World’s Most Admired Companies (WMACs) list
Accenture has extended its contract to provide RSA UK with insurance BPO services (front-line customer service & back-office administration services)
TCS announced the signing of a multi-year contract with Infineon Technologies, one of the leading semiconductor manufacturers, to operate and maintain solutions within the Infineon's Supply Chain Management (SCM) landscape
TCS said that it will lay off less than 1% of its staff as it seeks to control costs amid the global economic slowdown
Infosys said it has completed absorbing all 20,000 engineering students who graduated last year and to whom it had made job offers on campus
HCL Technologies signed a $80 million end-to-end IT Services engagement covering the entire IT lifecycle from transformation to integration and operations management with National Insurance Company Ltd. (NIC) for a period of 7 years
Wipro has won Rs 1,182 crore IT outsourcing contract from Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) beating TCS and Infosys
Wipro signed a three-year contract for the provision of IT Application Development and Support services with Friends Provident
Syntel announced regular quarterly dividend of $0.06 per share
EXL announced 2008 results – Revenue up 20% to $181.7 million, EPS of $0.38 per share from $0.60 last year due to $9.3million of forex losses, guided revenue to be between $170 million to $175 million for 2009

Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending March 6, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:04:00 +0000

Markets Roundup:

Stocks fell sharply and broadly during the week, depressed by investors' ongoing worries about the global economy and financial sector
Dow Jones Index fell below 7,000 for the first time since 1997
Stocks rose on Wednesday based on reports that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao may announce new economic stimulus measures and higher commodities prices (with the exception of gold), though lost more ground on Thursday
Mixed reaction to US unemployment data for February announced on Friday - nonfarm payroll fell 651,000 and unemployment rate rose to 8.1% in line with consensus estimates
AIG's posted the largest loss in US corporate history of $62 billion in the fourth quarter and received fresh bailout money
Automakers posted weak Feb sales
Berkshire Hathaway reported its worst year ever and Warren Buffett commented that the economy is in “shambles” for 2009

Industry Roundup:

Tech services sector fell 9% last week amidst noises of anti-offshoring legislations
Wachovia downgraded Cognizant, Infosys, Syntel and Wipro to Underperform
ET reported that as most of the clients from U.S. and Europe are tightening their IT budget and seek to renegotiate the existing contracts, Indian IT firms such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL are forced to sign new outsourcing contracts at 15-20 percent lower billing rates than last year
IBM announced creation of software, Sametime 3D, for holding face-to-face meetings in virtual world
Accenture announced laying off almost half its workforce of around 1,000 in the Philippine capital of Manila due to the effects of the global financial crisis
HP CEO Mark Hurd said he sees “caution in the air” and reiterated a prediction that technology demand won’t improve the rest of the year
HP announced more than a dozen products, solutions and services aimed at small- to medium-sized businesses, as part of the company's Total Care initiative aimed at midmarket companies
Infosys says new projects momentum has come down and witnessing pricing pressures. Infosys completed absorbing all 20,000 campus offers made last year.
Satyam announced that it has received approval from SEBI to facilitate a global competitive bidding process, contemplates the selection of an investor to acquire a 51% interest in the Company; IBM said to be leading the race
Patni announced that it has formed a local SAP services partnership with SAP Japan aimed at the Japanese market
Syntel announced that it has signed a partnership agreement with Global Analytics to provide bankcard fraud detection services for its customers worldwide
Genpact to host Investor Day on March 17