This week NelsonHall held its quarterly IT Outsourcing (ITO) Index webcast to report on the latest developments in ITO contract activity and present an analysis of spending activity for IT services, professional services (i.e. consulting and systems integration) and ITO. Background ITO Index data shows a steady (but non-linear) decline in Total Contract Value (TCV) from 2002 onwards. The lev[...]

Accenture Federal Services (AFS) is to acquire Agilex Technologies, a privately-held provider of digital solutions for the U.S. federal government based in Chantilly, VA. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.  The acquisition will enhance Accenture’s digital capabilities in analytics, cloud and mobility for federal agencies. It also will add agile delivery expertise. Agilex br[...]

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[...]

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[...]

This week Wipro held its first analyst day in the U.S. in over 18 months. During this time, Wipro has conducted a strategic review of its approach to the market, and decided to change its method of engaging clients and prospects.    First CEO TK Kurien opened by describing Wipro’s view of the market: Enterprises were created prior to the current digital era. As a[...]

Visa has announced it is assessing whether to sell its investment in mobile payment software developer and transactions processor Monitise. Visa formed an alliance with Monitise in 2009 to provide Visa with mobile platform development services. The agreement runs through 2016. As part of the agreement, Visa made a capital investment in Monitise and received 14.4% of the company's equity. Ov[...]

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[...]

IBM has patented a technique to allow users to dynamically choose or change the location where public and private cloud data is stored.This is clearly a very important development in legitimizing cloud use for production applications, where country and industry regulators can take a very strong view on the geographies in which data, particularly customer data, can be stored. Potentially th[...]

Wipro announced its Q1 FY 2015 results today (for full details see here:). Bit of a mixed bag from Wipro this quarter, generally positive, but with a few areas where we would hope to see improve over the next few quarters. Looking at overall topline performance, revenues were towards the higher end of prior guidance of $1,715m-$1,755m, and the 9.6% reported y/y growth was[...]

TSYS has announced Q2 2014 revenues, for the period ending June 30, 2014, of $538.1m, up 34.2% year-over-year. Revenues including reimbursables were $602.0m up 30.4% year-over-year. Q2 2014 revenues (and revenue change) by activity, excluding reimbursables, were: North America: $233.2m (+8.7%) International: $84.7m (+10.6%) Merchant services: $108.3m (-4.1%) [...]

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[...]

The Russian parliament has passed a law to require internet companies to store the personal data of Russia users inside the country’s borders. Although the bill has passed through the Duma, it still needs to be pass in the Federation Council of Russia and President Vladimir Putin before it comes into effect. If put into law, all internet companies operating in Russia will be required to s[...]

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[...]

Lockheed Martin (LMT) has acquired Beontra AG for an undisclosed sum to enhance its civil aviation capabilities. Headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany, Beontra is a provider of integrated planning and demand forecasting tools for airports for traffic, capacity and revenue planning. It has 40 clients including Dubai, London Heathrow, Sydney, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Schiphol and Munich airports. [...]

Serco has updated its guidance for 2013 and 2014 following its clearance by the U.K. government to bid for new contracts.  Serco expects a mid-single digit percentage organic decline on 2013 revenue due to: Lower levels of incremental work won across the group to date Attrition from contracts lost such as electronic monitoring Volume reductions in its Australian immigration detent[...]

TSYS' full year 2013 revenues (including reimbursables) were $2.1bn, a growth of 14.0%. The underlying fundamentals of the business (number of accounts on file and transaction volumes) grew aggressively in 2013, increasing 13% and 15% respectively.  In 2013 TSYS continued to enjoy strong revenue and earnings growth. Growth in the merchant business is continuing[...]

Wipro results this quarter show an ongoing improvement: topline growth is continues to improve and operating margin is the highest it has been for two years. Clearly, it still has a way to go to catch up with Indian growth rates (NASSCOM guided on 14% this FY), let alone with TCS. This quarter, Wipro achieved an operating margin of 23% and $101m in y/y topline growth; TCS achieved an operating mar[...]