NelsonHall recently attended Luxoft’s first ever analyst event in New York. Luxoft is a young company - it was founded in 2000 - that is enjoying very fast growth (20%-25% depending on the year). For its FY 2015 it has guided on revenue growth of at least 28% (of which 25% organic) and an adjusted EBITDA margin in the 17% to 19% target range. Luxoft is targeting $1bn in annual revenues[...]

IBM recently held its annual IBM Alliances event, focusing on SAP and Oracle (other major IBM-wide partners include Microsoft, Infor, Cisco, Juniper Networks and Citrix). IBM Alliances manages major relationships with technology vendors that cross several IBM service lines, e.g. GBS, GTS, Systems & Technology, and Software. Those seven major partnerships are significant and command ~15% of ove[...]

This week NelsonHall held its quarterly IT outsourcing (ITO) Index webcast. We have conducted these calls for the last six years to monitor developments in ITO from a quantitative perspective. When we introduced the Index, ITO had largely moved from full outsourcing to a selective outsourcing approach, and Indian vendors were deploying their land and expand strategy with the occasional one-off meg[...]

Tech Mahindra has launched Virtualized Mainframe Testing (vMT), a new service that offers clients savings on their mainframe application development and testing costs, especially for applications that are on a maintenance and enhancement/release mode. vMT mostly focuses on reducing consumption of MIPS. In the context of mainframes, reducing MIPs usage is a key lever for lowering costs, as IBM m[...]

Cognizant is to acquire TriZetto, a healthcare ISV in the U.S., for $2.7bn in cash. TriZetto has a headcount of 3.7k (Cognizant at end of H1 2014: 187k.4). In its last 12 months, TriZetto had $711m in revenues and a non-GAAP operating margin of 18.4% (Cognizant in 2013: 20.6%). TriZetto LTM revenues breakdown by service/product line is: Payer software: 40% (~$277m) Consulting: 23% (~[...]

Wipro has updated NelsonHall on its ServiceNXT initiative. ServiceNXT aims to increase productivity in both IT infrastructure management and application management contracts. ServiceNXT is based on: Usage of Wipro IP and recommended COTS tools across the client’s operation for various tasks including ITSM, change management, demand management, problem management Analytics, based on d[...]

Sopra recently updated NelsonHall on its application management (AM) capabilities. In 2013 Sopra generated ~€393m revenues from AM, or ~29% of its total revenues. The company is a top application management vendor in its domestic market, along with Accenture, Capgemini, Atos CGI, and IBM. Key AM clients of Sopra include Airbus, Orange, SFR, Crédit Agricole, EDF, Auchan, SNCF, BN Pariba[...]

Tieto's Q2 2014 revenues were €386.4m, down 7.3% y/y, and down 1.3% y/y at constant currency. (for full details see here)  Q2 2014 revenue (and growth both on an actual and CC/organic basis) by service line was: Managed Services: €132m (+5%, +9%). Half of the CC organic growth this quarter resulted from hardware reselling as part of a large IT infrastruct[...]

Sopra and CS Communication & Systèmes, a French IT services vendor, have announced a multi-tiered agreement: CS is to proceed to a €12m convertible bond issuance (maturity 5 years, conversion price per share: €3.6; interest rate: 4%; delivery: July 2014). As part of this issuance, Sopra agreed with DUNA & Cie, th[...]

Atos is to acquire France-headquartered technology vendor Bull for €620m in an all cash transaction. Atos offers €4.9 per Bull share, a premium of 22% over May 23’s closure price of €4.01. The offer is conditional on Atos receiving 50% and 1 shares. The largest shareholders of Bull, Crescendo Industries and Pothar Investments, which own a 24.2% stake in Bull, ha[...]

Atos has unveiled its financial objectives for its Worldline unit. The company is to float Worldline by mid-2014, while keeping a majority stake in the company. Proceeds from the IPO are to finance organic growth and especially acquisitions. Financial objectives for the 2013-2017 period include: Revenue growth of 5% to 7% (2013-2017 CAGR) all organic (2012 revenues €1,066m, +5%; 2013[...]

Cigniti’s mobile application testing road-map prefigures how overall software testing is likely to evolve over the next few years. Like a number of its competitors, Cigniti has launched a centralized service consolidated across labs, therefore allowing economics of scale. The company is able to share costs of its device estate investment across clients, at a minimal price i.e.[...]

NelsonHall recently attended an Infosys analyst event in Europe, where it was briefed by Infosys on progress in its ‘Infosys 3.0’ strategy. The company is looking to build its Consulting & Systems Integration (C&SI) and Product & Platform Solutions (PPS) businesses while further strengthening its core Business and IT Services (BITS) businesses; the intent remains to deri[...]

Infosys and TCS published recently their Q1 FY 2014 (calendar Q2) financials. The two companies provide as part of their financial reporting indications on their software testing activities. In detail, in Q1 TCS’s assurance services were up (a NelsonHall estimated) ~24% to ~$256m Infosys testing revenues were up ~+14% to $165m. The Q1 FY 2014 information is consistent with their[...]