IBM still considers Satyam a worthy competitor

It may have been rocked by the country's biggest-ever corporate fraud, but Satyam Computer still figures among the companies considered worthy rivals to global technology giant IBM.

In its annual report filed with the regulator for 2008, New York Stock Exchange-listed IBM has said that Satyam, along with two other Indian IT majors, Infosys and Wipro, are among its main competitors in various business segments.

Incidentally, days before admitting financial wrongdoings at Satyam, its founder B Ramalinga Raju had told the company's board in a December 16, 2008 meeting that he feared a hostile takeover bid of the IT firm by global players like IBM.

After Satyam's aborted bid to acquire two Maytas firms, IBM's name had also figured among the possible suitors for the Indian IT firm, but had been denied by the US company. Later in January, Satyam's board was superseded by the government and is currently on the lookout for a new owner.

In its annual report, filed earlier this week with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), IBM said Satyam Computer and Wipro Technologies are among its competitors as they target customer groups similar to its Global Technology Services segment.

"Indian service providers, including Satyam Computer Services Ltd and Wipro Technologies (Wipro), are moving to offer managed infrastructure services, targeting similar customer segments to GTS," IBM stated.

Global Technology Services (GTS) segment primarily reflects IT infrastructure services and business process services, delivering value through the company's global scale, standardisation and automation.

Meanwhile, IBM stated in the filing that its Global Technology Services business competes with a variety of competitors worldwide across its principal market segments - the global, broad-based competitors are Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), Accenture and Computer Sciences Corporation.

Further, the company stated that its main competitors for the Global Business Services segment include Accenture, Infosys Consulting and Wipro.

The company's GTS segment competes in strategic outsourcing, business transformation outsourcing, integrated technology services and IT support services, while GBS operates in consulting, system integration and application management services.

Interestingly, IBM Global Services has emerged as the largest vendor in the IT Services market in India with a market share of 10.8 per cent, followed by Wipro and TCS-CMC, in a recent report by an infotech tracking firm Springboard Research.