Scala to concentrate on WAP
Pune: The Amsterdam based business management software solutions provider, Scala Business Solutions, which has a major R&D centre established in Pune has announced that it will concentrate on developing major Wireless Application Protocol products. These products will allow speedier internet based telephony solutions.

The Indian R&D centre, the largest centre in the global Scala network, is already talking to several mobile communications hardware manufacturers to enhance mobile internet telephony. This protocol will enable transferring data and messages on the mobile phones and is likely to be a boon for B2B applications.
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Value Software forms JV with German company
Chennai: Value Software Technologies, a Chennai based software firm in which ICICI Ventures has a 34 per cent holding, recently announced a tie-up with a German firm, Tradex Consulting Gmbh.

The Munich based venture will provide the German market with software services in the areas of finance, banking and e-commerce. The German partner will help in the marketing of the products developed by the JV, while Value Software will provide the technical expertise and software developmental services.
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Ajanta Pharma appoints KPMG for partner search
Chennai: Ajanta Pharma, which recently got an international patent for its flagship brand ‘Carofit’, appointed noted management consulting firm, KPMG, as its advisor in its search for international partners in the US and Europe.

According to company sources, the company is expecting around $10 m from lumpsum payment and royalty for Carofit products that have found wide acceptance in the US market. The company, which is going to make an IPO, is planning to grow aggressively through acquisitions. These acquisitions, the source clarified, will be funded through internal accruals and not from the proceeds of the IPO.
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Mahindra-BT promoters may spin off their holding for overseas listing
Mumbai: In a report appearing in the Financial Express, the promoters of Mahindra-BT, the hugely successful software joint venture between the Mahindra group and British Telecom, are said to be considering diluting their holdings in favour of an overseas listing. According to Mr. Kiran Deshpande, the CEO, no decision to this effect has been taken as yet.

MBT, in which the Mahindra group holds 60 per cent, has been growing at a rate of over 74 per cent every year. Mr. Deshpande stated that the company is actively looking at an acquisition based growth strategy, in the software and telecom sectors.

MBT recently inked a memorandum of understanding with BT to provide interconnect solutions to telecom operators in the Asia-Pacific and North American regions.
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Telco to outsource inbound supply logistics
Pune: In a significant move that will help the company cut its material procurement and storing costs, Tata group major, Tata Engineering (Telco), has outsourced its entire inbound supply chain management. For this purpose the company has retained Pune based Dynamic Logistics as its one point contact for co-ordinating and managing supplies from all its vendors for its three manufacturing locations in Maharashtra.

Promoted by the Talera group, Dynamic Logistics, manages logistics for several established companies like Coca-Cola, Ford, Whirlpool and Godrej-GE.

Under the agreement with Telco, the management of the material supply chain into the Telco manufacturing locations will help Telco reduce inventory levels through just-in-time supplies, decongest the factory floor, rationalise manpower and concentrate on the core competencies.
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Wockhardt introduces its hepatitis-B vaccine
Mumbai: The first product from the Wockhardt joint venture with German biotechnology giant, Rhein Biotech, has just been launched. Branded Biovac-B, this recombinant-DNA vaccine will help fight the dreaded hepatitis-B disease.

The drug, which underwent several clinical trials in India before launch, claims to have a unique expression system based on the methylotropic yeast – Hansenula Polymorpha. The company plans to price the drug at least 25 per cent lower than a similar drug being marketed by a multi-national company. Besides the drug will be pushed by the over-400 strong field force the company has.
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Microsoft ties up with Andersen Consulting to form a JV
New York: Global software giant, Microsoft, tied up with consulting major, Andersen Consulting, to form a $1 billion joint venture called, Avanade. This JV will offer companies internet-specific and other services based on the Windows 2000 operating system.

While Microsoft will contribute $385m in cash and technological developmental support to the JV, Andersen Consulting will bring in the requisite intellectual capital, training, solutions development and other services to the table.
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Fiat opts for General Motors over DaimlerChrysler
Milan: Italian auto major, Fiat, under pressure from Italian financial regulators, today announced that it will be going in for a strategic alliance with the US auto giant, General Motors. There were newspaper reports that the board of Fiat was considering an alliance with GM or DaimlerChrysler. The choice for the alliance partner was made at a board meeting of Fiat, which zeroed in on General Motors.

While the company maintained a silence on the deal, market sources say that the deal would allow GM invest upto 20 per cent of Fiat Auto. With this deal, the Italian car major, which has been doing badly in the recent years, saw its century old independence breached. The Agnelli family which controlled the company for more than a century stoutly resisted having to part with equity in the company, but eventually had to give in, in light of the pressures from the stock markets.
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US media majors plan merger
Los Angeles: In yet another mega event in the mergers and acquisitions arena, two of the largest media companies in the US are said to be planning a merger that will make the combined entity one of the most powerful media companies in the world.

The Tribune Co. – which owns several major newspapers apart from 22 television stations – and the Times Mirror Co. – which owns the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun and such other major papers – are said to be in advanced stages of negotiations for the merger.

The merger will create the third largest newspaper company in the US.
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