• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

HPS, iXL to join hands in $65-m deal

Our Bureau

BANGALORE, Dec. 13

HCL Perot Systems (HPS) will enter into a $65-million deal with iXL, which designs and builds Internet solutions, to provide back-end services.

HPS also intends to come out with an initial public offer in a year, but the details are yet to be decided.

``We will set up global maintenance centres offering 24/7 production support to our clients,'' Mr Vineet Nayyar, CEO, said, declining to name them.

HPS recently acquired a software company in the Bay Area, California and will look at acquisitions as a way to grow, he added. HPS is a 50:50 joint venture between HCL Technologies and Perot Systems Corporation, US.

HPS is setting up a Rs 40-crore facility for offshore software development in Bangalore. Mr Nayyar said, ``The company plans to open a software development centre at Chandigarh by February and in Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.''

It also intends to set up two IT institutes -- the first in New Delhi and the other either in Bangalore or Hyderabad.

HPS plans to grow to over 2,000 professionals in Bangalore and has about 1,000 working at its facility in Noida.

It has earmarked about 15 per cent of its equity for issuing stock options to its employees.

The $50-million company offers e-commerce, application development, application service management and enterprise solutions. It focusses on telecom, finance, banking and insurance.

The company offers its clients flexible solutions such as the choice to have a dedicated offshore development centre, fixed cost/fixed schedule projects, risk-reward engagements or time and material assignments.