Amex, Tibco, Infosys & Westbridge create Workadia

SAN FRANCISCO: American Express Company, Tibco Software Inc., Infosys

Technologies Ltd. and WestBridge Capital Partners on Tuesday formed a new

company, Workadia L.L.C. Workadia will provide companies with customizable

business Intranets through browser accessed hosted portals. The firm will also

offer consulting services to help customers select and deploy Intranet

applications, content and services.

Workadia will focus initially on US firms with target customers being middle

market firms or those wanting to outsource business activities. "There is

an enormous, growing need for this type of service. This need, combined with the

potential to draw customers from the American Express customer base, should give

Workadia a leg-up in capturing market share," said Sally Hudson, Research

Manager, Internet Infrastructure Services at IDC, a market research company

based in Framingham, MA.

With an initial round of funding totaling $16.7 million, Workadia now hopes

to generate revenue from three primary sources: Licensing fees from customers,

consulting fees and third-party product and service sales. "Outsourcing of

corporate Intranets will be future for companies," said Phaneesh Murthy,

Infosys Board Member and Head of Worldwide Sales and Marketing.

"Our experience in building and integrating systems and connecting

enterprises will be invaluable for Workadia." Workadia plans to locate its

headquarters in California's Silicon Valley, and has named American Express

executive Mohit Mehrotra, as its interim chief executive.

Infy expands tie-up with Toshiba



Meanwhile, Infosys has announced expansion of its relationship with Toshiba
Corporation, to build the information infrastructure for Toshiba’s global

operations across many lines of business.

"We are very happy with the value-addition Infosys has brought to

Toshiba. Their strong process orientation along with domain knowledge and

experience in working across geographic boundaries helps Toshiba implement its

strategic IT roadmap across different worldwide businesses. We look forward to a

long term relationship with Infosys", said Kyosuke Tsuruta, General

Manager, Toshiba Information Systems Center in Tokyo.

According to associate vice president and Head of Enterprise Solutions,

Infosys Technologies B G Srinivas, "Infosys is assisting Toshiba analyze

its business-critical systems and chart out a path to make these solutions more

robust and to support growing business demands."

The Infosys-Toshiba relationship started in Japan in 1998 and has since

expanded to Toshiba’s operations across USA, Australia, Germany, France,

Malaysia, U.K and Singapore.