Markets and Industry Roundup - week ending April 3, 2009

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