[ASIA] Infovergix Technologies, a part of the $1.5 billion O.P. Jindal Group, entered into
a strategic partnership with Nortel Networks to address the e-applications market in India last
week.
“The alliance will leverage the technology strengths of Nortel and deliverable skill sets of
Infovergix. Nortel’s key focus area for India are e-business, wireless Internet, Internet telephony
and optical Internet, and Infovergix will help us address this market,” said Ravi Chauhan, country
manager (India and Saarc), Nortel Networks.
He added that as of now, Nortel had no intention of taking an equity stake in Infovergix, with its
participation being limited to providing the relevant technology.
“The global IT services market is estimated to grow to $1.4 trillion by 2003. This represents a
huge business opportunity for Infovergix,” said Naveen Jindal, Vice-Chairman and Managing
Director of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. (flagship of the group), said.
“Nortel has the most modern and comprehensive technology for customer contact and IT-enabled
services. Inforvergix will leverage this with their system integration capabilities to provide futuristic
end-to-end solutions,” the company said in a statement.
Infovergix will focus its attention on IT infrastructure and IT-enabled services, company officials
said. The new company is beginning operations with 25 people. “We will add 5 to 10 people
every month in the course of next one year,” Brahm Majithia, managing director and chief executive
officer of Infovergix, said.
An initial investment of $2.17 million has been lined up for Infovergix, in which Jindal Steel and
Power holds 60 percent equity. The rest lies with strategic investors and the management (through
ESOPs), Jindal said.
The company, however, would not venture into the software development, he said. It would also
not provide customers relationship management services. However, Infovergix would work as a
Nortel partner when the latter implements large networks and service for ISPs.
