Thursday, September 1 2005 15:11 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Amsterdam: Tata Consultancy Services, International Business Machines Corp and three other companies won a 1.8 billion euro (2.22 billion US dollar) order from ABN Amro Holdings NV to maintain and upgrade its global information technology network.

Infosys Technologies, Accenture Ltd. and Patni Computer Systems Ltd will also get part of the five-year order, the Amsterdam-based bank said in a statement today (Sept 1, 2005).

The order would allow Tata Consultancy, Infosys and Patni to gain a foothold in large customer technology-infrastructure management and software development contracts that's now mainly given to US rivals such as IBM and Accenture. Overseas companies have been hiring aggressively in India to take advantage of the lower wages to compete against Indian rivals.