India's two largest software companies said yesterday that Dutch-based bank ABN Amro had awarded each of them their largest-ever outsourcing contracts totalling US$400 million.
India's largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, said in a statement that it had won a five-year 200 million euro (US$260 million) contract for outsourcing work on ABN Amro's strategic banking platform.
"This is the largest deal won by an Indian IT services company ever," Tata Consultancy said.
Rival Infosys Technologies also said that it was awarded a five-year deal worth US$140 million to handle a "wide spectrum" of applications for ABN Amro offices in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific.
"This is the single largest multi-year, multi-million euro contract ever won by Infosys," said Nandan Nilekani, chief executive officer.
"The deal also signifies a trend towards strategic global sourcing, where customers are selecting multiple, best-of-breed vendors to help improve efficiencies in their IT service delivery," Nilekani said.
Investors welcomed the announcements as shares of both Infosys and Tata Consultancy rose.
V. Balakrishnan, senior vice-president of Infosys, said the total value of the ABN Amro deal was US$1.2 billion.
"Infosys and Tata Consultancy put together got US$400 million. The rest has gone to other firms including IBM, Accenture and Patni Computer Systems," Balakrishnan said.
He said more "multi-million-dollar" deals were in the pipeline.
"We are in the game. There are a couple of others more from the US and Europe in the offing," Balakrishnan said.
A statement posted on ABN Amro's Web site abnamro.com said the deal would result in a new technology organization within the firm and 1,500 full-time employees would lose their jobs.
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