TCS bags $ 100 m GE order

MUMBAI: India's largest software service exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has

won from General Electric Co possibly the largest order ever placed with an Indian IT

company.

An industry source, who declined to be identified, said the order from GE Medical

Systems was worth $100 million over two to three years, but TCS declined to confirm the

size of the deal.

But TCS spokesman Atul Takle did tell Reuters: "This is larger than any deal TCS

has ever executed, and probably the largest in Indian software services history."

TCS is part of India's $8.5-billion tea-to-telecoms Tata conglomerate, the country's

second-largest industrial group behind Reliance.

The order is for providing a wide range of software and services encompassing supply

chain management, enterprise application integration, customer relationship management,

data warehousing and business intelligence solutions, Takle said.

"The project will be implemented over the next two to three years and will be

rolled out across 30 countries in Europe and Asia apart from the United States," he

said. "There are about 200 TCS staff initially working on the development of the

project at Bombay and Calcutta."

GE Medical Systems has a large Indian operation, including joint ventures with software

group Wipro and state-run Bharat Electronics Ltd. Scott Bayman, president and chief

executive of GE International Operations Co, the main Indian unit, told an industry

seminar on Wednesday that GE India would export medical diagnostics and components worth

$500 million by 2005. Its exports of medical diagnostics and equipment are currently worth

$200 million.