Amit Tripathi
Mumbai: Patni Computer, the Mumbai-based IT services provider, is about to close an over $50 million deal with a top telecom carrier in India to provide a proprietary service delivery framework.
A company official could not confirm the development for now.
It is learnt that Patni will provide Telecom-in-a-box (TIAB), a service framework that will ease the process of delivery of various services such as multimedia content, IPTV by telecom carriers to their customers.
Further details of the technology were not available immediately, but sources said that the company plans to make a formal announcement within three weeks.
In July 2007, Patni had acquired UK-based telecom consulting company, Logan-Orviss International.
Meanwhile, Patni is in talks with some IT service providers and telecom carriers to provide niche technology driven telecom services.
Most telecom operators in India have outsourced various technology requirements such as network management, bandwidth management, IT infrastructure management to specific providers. For instance, in January Bharti AirTel signed a $150 million contract with IBM to utilise its expertise in telemedia business, distribution, enterprise segments and business resilience in addition to the ten year contract for IT infrastructure outsourcing for $750 million signed in 2005.
Other telecom carriers such as Idea Cellular Ltd and Vodafone Essar Ltd too outsourced its IT and network management to IBM for about $800 million in 2007.
For Patni the focus on India is part of its effort to bolster its Asia-Pacific revenue from 5% of its total revenues to 9% in the next financial year.
Moreover, it is also looking at the second largest market for IT services i.e Japan. Business from Europe contributes about 13% of Patni’s revenue while the rest comes from the US.
However, in a recent note, Edelweiss analysts Viju George, Kunal Sangoi and Nikhil Chakrapani maintained their disappointment with Patni on account of its lower topline growth and high attrition.
Source :
DNAIndia
