Report: Infosys considering Capgemini acquisition
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(InfoWorld) - Indiaâs second largest outsourcer, Infosys Technologies, is considering a bid for French IT services company Capgemini, according to a newspaper report. The Times of India of Mumbai quoted an industry source on Friday as saying the move was a natural progression for a fast-growing Indian tech firm keen to make an impression on the global market. Infosys declined to comment on the reports. âWe do not comment on market rumors,â a spokeswoman for the company said Friday. However, Infosys, in Bangalore, indicated at itsÂ analyst conference in AprilÂ that it may consider an acquisition. An acquisition deal between Infosys and Capgemini is unlikely to happen, said Siddharth Pai, a partner at consultancy firm Technology Partners International in Houston, Texas. Infosys might acquire Capgemini to get access to European markets, where it doesn't have a large presence, but the cultural incompatibilities between the two companies are very high, he added. A number of Indian outsourcing companies including Tata Consultancy ServicesÂ (TCS) and WiproÂ have acquired companies abroad to increase their geographic reach and to focus on new industry sectors. Capgemini used acquisitions as way to win new business and add staff in India. Last year, the companyÂ acquired a 51 percent stakeÂ in Unilever India Shared Services, a subsidiary of European consumer goods maker Unilever Group. That business will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Capgemini by 2008. In February,Â Capgemini acquired Kanbay International, an IT services firm in Rosemont, Illinois, to boost its services delivery from India, and its business in the financial services sector. Infosys reported revenue of $3.1 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31 this year, and has forecast revenue of about $4 billion in its current fiscal year ending March 31 next year. The company had a market capitalization of $27 billion as of March 31. Capgemini is a larger company with revenue of $10 billion for its fiscal year ended December 31.
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Representatives from Cerberus Capital Management  met executives from Chrysler Group on Monday to consider a possible bid for the struggling automaker, the Detroit News reported on Tuesday.
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(InfoWorld) - CapgeminiÂ , a major global services provider, has just partnered with Google to enable large-scale adoption of the enterprise version of Google Apps. Capgemini will provide training, support, integration, and other services to large organizations that implement Google Apps Premier. Itâs a small but momentous event, signaling increasing enterprise interest in free Web-based apps that look and feel like Word, Excel, and other Microsoft Office software. Google Apps was added to the portfolio of products Capgemini supports because the company believes demand for SaaS (software-a-service) productivity suites will grow strongly in coming years. Steve JonesÂ , a CTO at Capgemini, is quick to note that Google Apps will not displace Office, but will fill two niches: enhancing the ability of knowledge workers to create documents collaboratively and bringing Office-like capabilities to workers who would not otherwise have them. Nonetheless, adoption is bound to increase. "I'd expect more and more IT services companies will offer that kind of help desk and support around the Google Apps Premier environment," says Rebecca WettemannÂ , an analyst with Nucleus ResearchÂ . "Now is the time to definitely have advanced technology folks and strategy people, the ones who look a year or two ahead, to look at this stuff and stay abreast of it, even if the time isn't yet right to purchase," says Burton Group analyst Guy CreeseÂ . "A huge mistake would be to look at the offerings today, say they're immature, and then not pay any attention." At this point, with viral adoption of Google Apps happening under ITâs radar, attention is already being paid by rank in file employees. And Google is far from the only provider. Several smaller vendors with strong offerings, including ZohoÂ  and ZimbraÂ , compete directly with Google Apps. Cisco Systems now offers its WebEx WebOffice Â platform for collaboration, while a number of applications in Salesforce.comâs AppExchange venture into desktop productivity territory Waiting for Redmondâs shoe to drop Conspicuous by its absence is Microsoft, which has been unable or unwilling to come out with a hosted suite comparable to Google Apps. Many wonder if Microsoft is having a hard time figuring out how to develop a hosted version of Office without cannibalizing its offline business. "A challenge for Microsoft is to figure out how to get people to buy the next version of Office if there is also an on-demand version," says Wettemann. Yet few doubt that Microsoft will eventually respond with a direct competitor to Google Apps and other similar suites. When it does, the effect on the market will likely be significant. "I think Microsoft needs to worry about it now because it takes a while to get right," Creese says. "In hosted office suites, it's going to take a while for companies to figure out how they want the thing to work." In defense of the current strategy, Microsoft officials have said that Office has steadily gained hosted service components for years, and that combining local PC software with services in the cloud is the right approach. Steve Ballmer elaborated on this point last May at the Software 2007 conference. Last week, Microsoft released a unified installer to help users download updates for its family of Windows Live hosted services. Yet those who have been waiting for Microsoft to make a power move found the announcement underwhelming and dismissed it as cosmetic. Not a desktop substitute While many organizations ponder SaaS productivity suites, thousands of others have already implemented them. Web-based suites save on hardware and on time and effort for software installation and maintenance. They also make it easy for employees to share and collaborate on documents for a fraction of the cost it would take to implement an in-house messaging and collaboration system such as Microsoft SharePoint or IBM's Lotus Domino/Notes. Disadvantages include security concerns over hosting sensitive data with a third-party outside the corporate firewall, as well as downtime incidents that leave the organization without access. Upon close inspection, exiting SaaS suites reveal themselves as strong in certain areas and weak in others. In a recently published and widely discussed 55-page report, Creese took a microscope to Google Apps Premier, dissecting its pros and cons in detail. For example, Creese found the suite lacking in archiving features, such as records management and electronic discovery, as well as in analytics capabilities, such as analysis of content creation patterns. Google responded with a statement saying that the suite gives organizations "a new set of choices, many of which will complement and extend the power of the desktop, enhance group productivity and improve collaboration." Indeed, after weighing the pros and cons of SaaS suites, most analysts, users and vendors generally agree that these will not eliminate the need for packaged software suites. Because each model has its advantages, they work best in tandem, complementing each other. "We'll see more and more organizations that look to a tiered strategy for the way they deliver desktop applications. So rather than have a standard desktop, I may give Office to the folks in finance who really need Excel, while the folks in marketing may be fine within the Google environment," Wettemann says. The network effect At Adison & PartnersÂ , an executive recruitment consultancy, adopting Cisco's WebOffice has had a major positive effect, says Managing Partner Jim DiPietropoloÂ . The 8-person company has been office-less for the past several months, awaiting the completion of its new digs, which got delayed. With people working from home, having documents and calendars stored centrally in WebOffice servers has prevented the workflow from getting disjointed. "It ties everyone together," he says. Beyond helping with this temporary issue, WebOffice lets DiPietropolo and his employees be nimble in responding to client queries and requests while out of the office, by tapping remotely into databases and getting information on the fly. "From a business development standpoint, this has been a differentiator for us," he says. "This ability to instantaneously respond [to queries] really impresses clients." The significance of the Capgemini announcement, however, is that desktop SaaS solutions are moving upscale, from small businesses like Adison & Partners to global corporations â where dispersed knowledge workers are warming to the idea of collaborating on the same document in real time. âHaving a single version of the truth changes the business process,â says Capgeminiâs Jones, who notes that the e-mail round-robin that occurs in conventional document collaborations is eliminated. âReally, what weâre talking about is bringing software-as-a-service innovation to the desktop,â says Jones. âThe main way that people interact with a corporation is through the desktop. We are delivering software-as-a-service solutions into that market.â
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Schering-Plough Corp. SGP.N is   seriously considering approaching Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.   BMY.N about a possible merger, according to a report in The   Star-Ledger newspaper on Friday.
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(InfoWorld) - When the Nasdaq stock market opens next Monday, Indian outsourcer Infosys TechnologiesÂ will become the first Indian company to be included in its prestigious list of top-100 companies. The Nasdaq-100 index is composed of the 100 largest non-financial stocks on the Nasdaq in terms of market capitalization. The inclusion of Infosys follows Nasdaq Stock Market's annual revision of the index. Among the other tech companies to be affected by the changes that take effect on Dec. 18, Level 3 CommunicationsÂ is also being added to the list, while JDS Uniphase is being dropped. Infosys, Indiaâs second largest outsourcer, became the first Indian company to be listed on the Nasdaq in 1999. It has emerged as the poster child for the Indian outsourcing industry, thanks partly to its strong revenue and profit growth, but also due to some deft brand-building in India and abroad. Other companies in the index include Google, Dell, and Microsoft. Outsourcer Cognizant Technology Solutions, of Teaneck, New Jersey, is also in the top-100. Cognizant uses India as a hub for its offshore services delivery. Infosys called its addition to the index an important milestone for the company. Over the years it has tried to break out of the mold of an Indian services provider, to establish itself as a global company on a par with competitors like Accenture and Electronic Data Systems. It has also started to offer higher-value consulting services in addition to its contract application development and business process outsourcing. Infosysâ inclusion in the Nasdaq index is one of several factors that contribute to building a brand, said Siddharth Pai, a partner at Technology Partners International, a sourcing consulting company. Ultimately, however, its continued good performance will matter the most, he said. Infosys, like other Indian outsourcers, is still far from being a true global services company, and to become one it will need to make substantial investments in new geographies and broaden its services offerings, he added.
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Temasek Holdings , the Singapore government-owned investment agency, has approached Nasdaq  to buy its 30 percent stake, worth 800 million pounds ($1.6 billion), in the London Stock Exchange , a newspaper reported on Sunday.
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InfoWorld - Capgemini has agreed to acquire the software services company Software Architects to expand its presence in key U.S. cities, the French IT services provider said Thursday.
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CapgeminiÂ , a major global services provider, has just partnered with Google to enable large-scale adoption of the enterprise version of Google Apps. Capgemini will provide training, support, integration, and other services to large organizations that implement Google Apps Premier. Itâs a small but momentous event, signaling increasing enterprise interest in free Web-based apps that look and feel like Word, Excel, and other Microsoft Office software.
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SHANGHAI -- Indian outsourcing company Infosys Technologies Ltd. moved into its Shanghai office in February. Now, the company is running out of space and is scouting locations for a second outsourcing facility in China, a company executive said Wednesday.
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Schering-Plough Corp.  is  seriously considering approaching Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.   about a possible merger, according to a report in The  Star-Ledger newspaper on Friday.
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Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. is considering making a concession to the banks financing its $26 billion leveraged buyout of payment processor First Data Corp. , according to a source familiar with the situation.
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Sagem SA, a French defense-electronics maker, offered to buy state-controlled jet-engine maker Snecma SA for 4.9 billion euros ($6.24 billion) in stock as French President Jacques Chirac tries to create ...
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When the Nasdaq stock market opens next Monday, Indian outsourcer Infosys TechnologiesÂ will become the first Indian company to be included in its prestigious list of top-100 companies.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
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(InfoWorld) - Capgemini has agreed to acquire the software services company Software Architects to expand its presence in key U.S. cities, the French IT services provider said Thursday. The purchase of Software Architects, which focuses on project management, architecture and business technology services, will provide a gateway for new business in cities such as Tampa, Florida, and Phoenix, Arizona, according to Gapgemini. The software services company, which is located in Chicago, has a strong focus on MicrosoftÂ and IBMÂ technologies. Software Architects, a 500-employee company with revenues of $68 million in 2006, will be folded into Sogeti USA, a subsidiary of Capgemini. Sogeti will then have 2,000 employees in 24 U.S. cities, Capgemini said. The deal is subject to the approval Software Architects shareholders, antitrust clearance and customary closing conditions, Capgemini said. No financial details were disclosed. Capgemini has lowered costs for customers by delivering a mix of offshore services with on-site expertise, the company said. It has pushed into India and plans to have about 10,000 staff there by the end of this year. In October 2006,Â Capgemini bought Kanbay InternationalÂ for $1.25 billion to increase its ability to deliver services from India and gain access to Kanbay's large financial institution clients. A month prior, Capgemini acquired aÂ 51 percent stake in Unilever India Shared Services, a finance and accounting business process outsourcing operation in India belonging to European consumer goods maker Unilever Group.
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SAP is buying a small Indian software company to help beef up the business process management capabilities in its NetWeaver applications platform.It is purchasing Yasu Technologies, a maker of business rules management software, which helps ensure that business processes automated through software are in compliance with a company&#39;s rules and regulations.SAP characterized the deal, announced at its Tech Ed conference in Munich, Germany, on Wednesday, as a &quot;fill in&quot; acquisition that would bridge a gap in its technologies. The deal is due to close this month and financial terms were not disclosed.Several vendors, including SAP, are providing software tools that allow companies to automate common business processes, such as issuing a purchase order or checking inventory levels, with the goal of making them more efficient.But SAP does not yet offer tools for managing these processes, and buying Yasu will help it to add such BPM (business process management) capabilities to NetWeaver.SAP will begin pilot tests of its first BPM product, code-named Galaxy, in the first quarter of next year. The technology acquired from Yasu will be integrated with Galaxy around the middle of next year, said Klaus Kreplin, SAP&#39;s head of NetWeaver technology.Yasu&#39;s software helps companies to enforce the rules that their business processes must abide by. If a company automates a project approval process, for example, Yasu will send projects under a certain budget to a midlevel manager for approval, and more costly projects to a senior manager.&quot;The nice thing is, you can define rules and make them available as a service that can be integrated with other applications,&quot; Kreplin said.Yasu was founded in 1999 and has about 120 employees. Customers include the automaker BMW, according to its Web site.BPM is one of several areas SAP is entering to compete better with its main applications rival, Oracle. SAP will also offer software for building composite applications, called the NetWeaver Composition Environment, and developing hosted applications for smaller companies, called SAP Business ByDesign.The Galaxy software will be integrated with NetWeaver Composition Environment next year. Eventually that, in turn, will be offered as a part of Business ByDesign, Kreplin said, although he wouldn&#39;t say when.Last week SAP said it would&#160;buy business intelligence vendor Business Objects&#160;for S$6.8 billion. A few days later&#160;Oracle offered to buy BEA Systems, whose software competes with SAP&#39;s NetWeaver, for $6.7 billion, but BEA called the offer too low.SAP CEO Henning Kagermann told the Financial Times of London over the weekend that SAP won&#39;t enter a bidding war for BEA, and that its strategy is still to grow its two core businesses -- applications and middleware -- organically.But he wouldn&#39;t rule out further big acquisitions in areas where SAP is not already strong. &quot;We are categorically not excluding further big acquisitions,&quot; Kagermann said, according to the Financial Times.The company also continues to snap up smaller companies. SAP has bought more than a dozen vendors in the past three years, according to IDC, including five in 2005, three in 2006, and six so far in 2007, including Yasu and Business Objects. That compares to more than 30 acquisitions for Oracle, a few of which were much larger deals.
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Defence giant EADS is interested in buying parts of UK's BAE Systems, in addition to seeking a merger with Thales, a report says.
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Sections of the media have been speculating on a variety of issues concerning investments of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) in the infocomm initiatives of the group.