The Hindu Business Line : Polaris trims NEC project team

POLARIS Software Lab has reduced its number of employees working for NEC, Japan, to 50 during the June 2004 quarter compared to about 100 employees in the previous quarter, Mr Arun Jain, Chairman, Managing Director and CEO, told analysts in a conference call.

Mr Jain did not elaborate further on the reasons for scaling down the number.

When asked for the reasons, a company official said: "They (NEC) are very silent."

He also did not elaborate further.

It may be recalled that last year, in developing `The Global Banking System' (GBS), NEC adopted a multi vendor approach - across geographies - and involved Polaris and Covansys from India, Client Server Computation from the US and Chin Kon from China, all of whom worked together to develop a product for NEC.

For Polaris, NEC was a client with potential to generate at least $5 million in revenues annually.On the AIG joint venture, Mr Jain said that about 250 employees were working, and that there was no major addition in the staff number during the June 2004 quarter.

For the recently signed client, GE Capital Services, Polaris has about 250 employees working at its Hyderabad and Delhi centres, said Mr Jain.

Talking to newspersons, after the company's annual general meeting, Mr Jain said during the June quarter, Polaris signed up two major London-based banks.

To begin with, the revenue from these two clients was about $1 million each, and there is potential to reach about $5 million in the next three years, he said. Mr Jain declined to name the two clients.

"The European market is the most arrogant in the world, and we have successfully signed with two Tier I banks, which could be compared to State Bank of India," he said.