Source: www.business-standard.com

Datacom Solutions, the telecom services arm of consumer electronics major Videocon Group, has short-listed four IT majors for supplying technology solutions on a revenue sharing basis. The contract, according to sources, is valued around Rs 3,000 crore spread over a seven-year period.

The company is in the final stages of negotiations with International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tech Mahindra and Wipro. Datacom Solutions has dropped HCL Technologies, which had also participated in the bid.

When contacted Datacom Solutions, Chief Executive Officer Ravi Sharma confirmed the development. However, he did not disclose the financial terms and the value of the contract.

Datacom Solutions was looking at outsourcing its technology solutions on a revenue-sharing basis, the first-of-its-kind move in the country.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel had outsourced its network management to Ericsson for $400 million in 2004, and later provided another $1.5 billion contract to the Swedish technology provider.

Telecom giant Vodafone-Essar also outsourced its IT operations to IBM under a five-year contract in 2007 (financial were terms not disclosed), while Aditya Birla group company Idea Cellular has signed a 10-year IT outsourcing deal with IBM. Idea Cellular’s deal was estimated to have been pegged at around $600-800 million.

Datacom Solutions, which is planning to commence network operations from August 15, has floated a request for proposal (RFP) for 70 million lines. It received responses from six major players, Ericsson, Nokia-Siemens, ZTE, Alcatel-Lucent, Huwaei and Nortel.

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

NEW DELHI: India’s booming IT market has seen the domestic demand growth outstrip exports for the first time in over a decade, thanks to the maturing outsourcing market, says a new survey.

The domestic IT demand grew 34 per cent in 2007-08, compared with 27 per cent for exports, which is the opposite of what happened the last fiscal, says the annual IT industry survey of Dataquest - the flagship publication of CyberMedia Group.

“Finally, the day of reckoning has come,” says the soon-to-be-released survey. “And what a convincing difference it has been - 34:27,” say the findings of its 25th annual edition.

In value terms, exports, at Rs.1,897.92 billion ($47.45 billion), still account for two-thirds of total revenues while the domestic sales were estimated at Rs.990.18 billion ($24.75 billion.