Markets Roundup: 
- Dow closed above 8,000 after starting the week off badly; NASDAQ ended positive
- Existing home sales for March fell 3.0% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 4.57 million as against an expectation of 4.65 million units
- New home sales for March came in at seasonally adjusted annual rate of 356,000, which was better than expected, but down 0.6% from an upwardly revised February data
- March durable goods orders and orders excluding transportation declined 0.8% and 0.6%, respectively; both not as bad as expected
- Government announced the details of its measures used for conducting a series of stress tests at 19 leading U.S. banks. Though actual results from the tests won't be available until May 4, the report acknowledged that most U.S. banking organizations currently have capital levels well in excess of the amounts required to be considered well capitalized. Meanwhile, Fed regulators generally assert that banks should be prepared for the worst.
- Treasury Secretary Geithner spoke before a congressional committee on Tuesday that there was still about $109.6 billion available from the $700 billion rescue package passed last year, and he expects to get at least an additional $25 billion back, bringing the total to $134.6 billion
- ECB President indicated that more rate cuts may be in order for the European economy, though such cuts would come in measures of 25 basis points
Industry Roundup:
- Tech services sector stocks were down 1% during the week
- IBM announced Q1 results – Revenue of $21.7 Bn down 11% from 1Q2008; Net income of $2.3 Bn, or $1.70 a share, compared to $2.32 Bn, or $1.64 a share in 1Q2008
- IBM and Equifax, a provider of information solutions, employment and income verification and human resources BPO services, announced that the companies have signed a contract amendment for IT services in the US, Canada, Spain and the UK. Under the agreement, IBM will provide data centre services including mainframe, midrange server, client service desk, network and business continuity and resiliency services for Equifax's operations
- IBM announced a new services contract to transform and operate Unilever's Human Resources (HR) processes across 19 Latin American countries
- HDFC Bank, one of the largest banks in India, announced an agreement with IBM to build a cost-effective IT framework that will support the bank's business growth. HDFC Bank is the first commercial bank in India to adopt the IBM mainframe & has joined the ranks of the world's top 50 banks that continue to run on System z technology.
- EDS, an HP company, announced a 5-year technology infrastructure outsourcing contract with Mazda Motor Europe. Under the agreement, EDS will consolidate technology from Mazda’s data centers in Willebroek, Belgium, and Leverkusen, Germany, to centralized services in EDS’ data center in Frankfurt, Germany.
- EDS, an HP company, announced a $245 million, 4.5-year agreement with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, under which EDS will provide system integration & applications modernization services to help increase availability of accurate and complete information so employees can easily monitor the effectiveness of department programs. EDS will create & manage the image capture, database, information storage & server environment where offender information will reside.
- CSC announced the launch of its Federated Identity Management (FIM) offering, a solution designed to enable companies and organizations to establish trusted relationships with business partners & outside parties as part of its Trusted Identity Enterprise Suite, a portfolio of fully integrated, end-to-end identity management solutions.
- CSC announced that it is expanding its industry-leading default management software-as-a-service, EarlyResolution, to include mortgage insurance eligibility requirements from Radian Guaranty of Philadelphia, Penn
- TCS announced its Q4FY09 and full year FY09 results – Revenue of $1.4 Bn for the quarter, down 5.5% Y/Y & 3.4% Q/Q; Full year revenue at $6.02 Bn, up 6.8% Y/Y; EPS for the quarter of $0.27 compared to $0.32 in same quarter last year; Full year EPS at $1.15 compared to $1.28 in the previous year; Board recommend 1:1 bonus
- HCL Tech announced its Q3FY09 results – Revenue of $564.4 million, a growth of 18.2% y/y & 11.3% q/q; EPS at $0.26 compared to $0.50 in JFM’08, a decline of 48% y/y
- Wipro announced its Q4FY09 results – Revenue of $1.05 Bn for the quarter, down 4.9% Q/Q and up 1.4% Y/Y; Net income for the quarter was $201 million
- WNS announced that it made a voluntary prepayment of $5 million on its existing $200 million term loan facility in early April 2009 as permitted under the loan agreement
- Hexaware has formed a global partnership with Greenplum, a provider of database software for the next-generation of data warehousing and large scale analytic processing. While Greenplum will provide the database platform, Hexaware will enable the migration, implementation, upgrades and maintenance services on these platforms
Markets Roundup:
- Markets closed marginally higher after seesawing earlier in the week, allowing the market to score a sixth straight week of gains
- Weak March retail sales data fueled profit taking in the market at the beginning of the week
- Goldman Sachs announced a $5 billion common equity offering that will prove dilutive to existing shareholders, but is intended to help repay TARP funds. However, it was offset by a better-than-expected earnings announcement and a reaffirmed outlook.
- March industrial production fell a more-than-expected 1.5%, while capacity utilization came in at 69.3%.
- Consumer prices for March slipped 0.1%, but core prices increased 0.2%. Economists expected a respective increase of 0.1% and an increase of 0.1%.
Industry Roundup:
- Tech services sector stocks were down 1% during the week
- The biggest news in the technology services industry last week was Tech Mahindra emerging as the highest bidder for Satyam @ Rs 58 per share for the 31% stake. Along with the 20% open offer Tech Mahindra will make at the same price, the 51% Satyam stake could cost Tech Mahindra at least $580 million
- The Hokkoku Bank Japan has extended its strategic outsourcing contract with IBM for an additional 6 years and 8 months. As part of the agreement, IBM Japan will manage the operation and maintenance of the company's information technology systems.
- IBM announced that Daishi Bank, Japan has extended its outsourcing contract for an additional 6 years. IBM will manage the operation and maintenance of the company's information system and the development and maintenance of its applications.
- IBM announced an agreement with STAR India, a leading media & entertainment company in Asia, to implement SAP ECC 6.0 application for all major business processes
- Jet Plastica, a leading manufacturer of foodservice disposables, has selected IBM to implement the Infor ERPLN Fast Start program and the Cognos Enterprise Reporting tool
- IBM created a new consulting organization, IBM Business Analytics & Optimization Services, dedicated to the market for advanced business analytics & business optimization
- IBM announced that it is establishing the first IBM cloud computing laboratory in Hong Kong. The new facility will provide a global hub for Web-based messaging services to support IBM's emerging LotusLive cloud service portfolio, which offers affordable, company-to-company social networking and online collaboration tools.
- HP announced that it has signed a seven-year infrastructure services contract to reduce operating costs, improve flexibility and accelerate business growth for Celesio AG, one of Europe’s leading pharmaceuticals services providers
- Accenture won a five-year IT outsourcing agreement from Scripps Networks Interactive, a developer of lifestyle-oriented content for television & internet, to provide application development & maintenance as well as infrastructure-management services such as data center, security, and network services.
- Accenture won a five-year application outsourcing contract from BMW to consolidate its information technology processes. As part of the agreement, Accenture will help BMW consolidate a vendor network of its application operations service providers & to make overall IT processes more reliable, predictable and efficient.
- CSC announced that the NASA Shared Services Center, a public-private partnership between NASA, CSC & the state governments of Mississippi & Louisiana, won the Best New Captive Services Delivery award from the Shared Services Outsourcing Network
- CSC, established in 1959, is celebrating its 50th anniversary, marking five decades of delivering technology services across the globe.
- ACS announced that it will be hiring 215 new employees – 180 in Lexington and an additional 35 in London – to positions for customer care agents, data entry, clerical and managers who are needed to respond to increased business.
- Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has brought about 500 employees accounting for 10% of its UK workforce back to India, as a part of its cost-cutting drive.
- Infosys announced its Q4FY09 and full year FY09 results - Revenue for Q4 of $1,121m, a decline of 4.3%QQ/1.8%YY and earnings for Q4 of $0.56, a growth of 1.8%YY; Revenue for FY09 of $4,663 million, a growth of 11.7%YY, and earnings for FY09 of $2.25, a growth of 10.3%YY. Infosys has guided Q1FY10 revenue of US$1,060-1,080m, down 3.6-5.4%QQ and 6.5-8.2%YY and fiscal 2010 revenues to be down 3.1-6.7%YY and fiscal 2010 margin to be down 300 basis points
- A survey by Infosys of 139 of the its clients, representing 83% of its revenue revealed that IT budgets are being slashed this year, some by up to 10%.
- Infosys sees over $1 billion worth of outsourcing contracts coming from the Indian market over next few years, as country’s government and state-owned organisations seek to become more efficient by outsourcing their IT needs
- During the week, both Cognizant & Wipro announced being named ‘Leader’ in ‘The Forrester Wave(TM): Global IT Infrastructure Outsourcing, Q1 2009’ by Paul Roehrig, PhD
- Perot Systems has signed an agreement with The Christ Hospital to provide revenue cycle services including billing, follow-up and certain customer service functions
- Wipro Technologies CTO Vijaya Kumar laid out its strategy to enter the cloud computing market over the next three to six months
- Wipro BPO has received the 'highest average rating' among Indian service providers from IDC for providing value-added business process redesign and management
- Delta Air Lines, the world's largest commercial carrier after its merger with Northwest Airlines in 2008, said that it is pulling back 2,000 jobs from Wipro claiming customer dissatisfaction, after six years of having outsourced the call services
Markets Roundup:
- Markets remained range-bound expecting another downbeat earnings season on the horizon
- Dow component Alcoa officially kicked off earnings season Tuesday evening with a deeper-than-expected loss
- February wholesale inventories fell 1.5%
- A better-than-expected earnings preannouncement from Wells Fargo sent the financial sector surging towards the end of the week
- Retail stocks were up following strong earnings by a few retailers and better than expected same-stores sales for March by all retailers
- Securities and Exchange Commission invited public comment on its proposed rules to curb short-selling
Industry Roundup:
- Tech services sector stocks were down 1% during the week; Sun Microsystems shed more than one-fifth of market cap in one session on news of collapse of merger deal with IBM
- IBM announced that Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, Japan has extended its contract for an additional five years, under which IBM will manage the operation & maintenance of the company's mainframe systems
- IBM signed a 4-year contract with Prague Airport to implement a system to enable it to collect and analyze information for the calculation of airport fees and handling charges
- IBM announced that it has signed a five-year agreement with Sainsbury's, to transform the retailer's supply chain network
- InSite One Inc, the largest cloud provider for medical image data archiving, storage, and disaster-recovery solutions in the US, has chosen IBM as the vendor of choice for its primary datacenter expansion and storage device upgrades
- Accenture won a three-year contract from Carlsberg to provide management consulting, systems integration, application development, application maintenance and program management services in Europe
- HP announced that Almac Group, a global pharmaceutical services provider in Ireland, used HP software to reduce the time required to put new drugs through clinical trials
- The Information Store and CSC have signed an alliance agreement under which CSC will act as the prime systems integrator and consulting services provider
- Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC), the body formed to set up a new statutory child maintenance scheme, has selected TCS to develop the new IT systems in the form of packaged software available off-the-shelf
- TCS was inducted as the technology partner of Rajasthan Royals (RR), the IPL 2008 champion, to help the team's performance. Under the 3-year agreement, TCS will provide IT solutions to RR, on and off the field, in order to enhance the efficiency of the organization and help retain the IPL championship title for the second season
- Rajasthan government-run power companies have appointed Infosys as IT consultant for implementing centre-funded Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (R-APDRP) in 87 cities across the state under the 11th Five-Year Plan
- Satyam entered into a partnership with Pentaho Corp. to offer "On Demand BI (Business Intelligence) solutions" for customers on Pentaho BI Suite Enterprise Edition
- Xerox Corp. will pay $100 million over six years to outsource data-center services to HCL Technologies. As part of the deal, HCL will manage disaster-recovery preparation for Xerox and consolidate the company's data centers in North America and Europe
- HCL Technologies has bagged a 5-year IT services contract worth $170 million from Microsoft. HCL has become a strategic vendor for providing technology services to Microsoft for its online services business
- Cognizant CEO Francisco D'souza announced that it is scouting for acquisitions to diversify its presence in the Asia-Pacific region
- Doylestown Hospital announced that Perot Systems has successfully assisted the hospital's implementation of an advanced Health Care Information System (HCIS)
- Perot Systems announced that it won a 3-year, $15 million contract within the Department of Defense, Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO)
- Wipro announced that Wipro BPO has been recognized as the Best New BPO Locator of the year at the International ICT Awards, held recently in Manila
- Wipro announced that it has implemented SAP ERP ECC 6.0 for HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL)’s refinery business in India
- EXL announced the renewal of its strategic outsourcing relationship with Centrica, PLC (British Gas). Under the terms of the renewed contract, EXL will continue to provide comprehensive services including complex back office processes, debt management and analytics for an additional three year term through April 2012
Markets Roundup: 
- Markets continued to grow as investors' hopes for an economic rebound rose giving the market its best monthly performance in six years
- Stocks finished higher thanks to better-than-expected Construction Spending, Factory Orders, Pending Home Sales, ISM Manufacturing Index data
- On the negative side, Composite Home Price Index, ISM Nonmanufacturing Index, and Consumer Confidence Index were all below expectations
- Labor Department reported that 663,000 jobs were slashed in March, lifting the unemployment rate to 8.5% from 8.1%. The data were on par with expectations, though ADP Employment Report indicated that 742,000 jobs were lost in March
- Financials welcomed FASB’s decision to ease mark-to-market accounting rules for banks though it was expected and already priced in
- Stoking optimism was also the economic stimulus pacts reached by leaders of the G20
Industry Roundup:
- Tech services sector stocks were up 6.4% during the week
- IBM won a multi-year agreement from Carphone Warehouse, Europe's leading independent mobile phone retailer. IBM will manage Carphone's infrastructure services across areas such as the service desk, servers, storage, desktop, network and data centers and 140 Carphone staff will move over to join IBM and Manpower
- EnergyAustralia, Australia's largest electricity distribution network, entered into an agreement with IBM to implement an energy network monitoring & control solution
- IBM announced the launch of LotusLive Engage, an integrated social networking and collaboration cloud service designed for businesses of all sizes enabling companies to communicate and collaborate in new ways without increasing the resources in their IT departments.
- IBM received a 7-year $184 million extension of its technology services contract with National Account Service Co, to help process insurance claims for Blue Cross & Blue Shield
- HP announced HP Cloud Assure, a new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering designed to help businesses safely and effectively adopt cloud-based services
- EDS won a 12-year $586 million contract from the British Columbia Ministry of Labour and Citizens’ Services for hosting and data centre services
- Accenture has signed a two-year, €100 million agreement with Banco Santander to support the bank's global operations by providing systems integration, consulting, business process management, information technology outsourcing and business process outsourcing
- US General Services Administration (GSA) has selected Perot, CSC, among its vendors to support the IT requirements for Civil and Department of Defense agencies
- CSC announced a five-year IT contract extension with leading retailer Kmart Australia, valued at approximately $25 million (AUD$36.4 million)
- Department of Homeland Security's National Communications System (NCS) has extended its IT contract with CSC for two years valued at $56 million
- CSC launched Virtual Desktop, the company's line of enterprise IT services designed to increase workplace flexibility & help customers respond to changing business demands
- ACS won a $67 million, 7-year contract with Marin Healthcare District to provide consulting & outsourced services to Marin General Hospital, under which ACS will implement an enterprise-wide hospital information & EMR system, a full-scale outsourcing of the hospital’s IT dept & provide the hospital with complete revenue cycles systems
- 300 Satyam employees working on the Merrill Lynch project have accepted a rebadging offer to join Bank of America (BofA)
- NEC and HCL have formed a partnership to develop a new enterprise content management product for the Japanese market
- HCL has been rated as the country's best employer in the survey 'Best Employer in India Study 2009' conducted by Hewitt Associates, in partnership with Outlook
- Cognizant has agreed to pay $509,000 as back-wages to 67 employees who went on H-1B visa to the US after the US Labour department found that Cognizant did not comply with regulations related to paying computer professionals hired under the H-1B program the proper wages
- Pramod Bhasin, CEO of Genpact, has been appointed chairman of NASSCOM for 2009-10
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