Wipro Infotech Acquires for Convergence Skills

Wipro Infotech has entered into an agreement to acquire Planet PSG, and the India, SAARC and Middle East operations of 3D Networks - two subsidiaries of Singapore headquartered Planet One for approximately $23 million in cash, plus performance linked payments for a two year period. 3D Networks has specialised integration and technology management skills in Voice Integration. It is the sole platinum partner for Nortel in the entire APAC region. Planet PSG boasts of advanced skills on Nortel Periphonics platform, and is the sole Global Technical Services Provider (GNTS) for the same across APAC. It is a professional services organization with strong skills in areas of IVR / CTI / Speech.

Convergence unifies business communications for data, voice and multimedia content on a single infrastructure backbone. This emerging trend has a rapidly growing market for large enterprises across verticals including the ITES/ IT space. According to Suresh Vaswani, president, Wipro Infotech and Global IT Service Lines, Wipro Technologies, the two companies were chosen for acquisition because their skills were complementary to Wipro's existing IT solutions portfolio, and would serve to strengthen its positioning in the convergence. "Wipro Infotech is a comprehensive IT solutions organization. We are scanning the market constantly for possible purchases. Our acquisitions strategy inorganically scales complementary technology and domain practices, which in turn strengthens our solutions and services portfolio. We acquired these two companies as they were a synergistic fit," he said. In terms of revenues, 3D Networks and Planet PSG registered $38 million sales or 10% of Wipro's own $370 million during FY 2005-06. Both companies have employee strength of about 320. The buy out is expected to be completed by the third quarter of FY 2006-07.

Source : CXO TODAY