Industry first JV between Motorola and Wipro

Sufia Tippu
Tuesday, 25 July 2006 19:26

IT Industry - Market

For the first time in the Indian IT industry, a global telecom leader (Motorola) is teaming up with a software service provider (Wipro) to set up a new company.

The new company, WMNetServ will deliver outsourced telecom services to the market.

India’s third largest software exporter Wipro and wireless and broadband giant Motorola announced that the new company will take on the global managed services business in a big way.

According to Mercer Management Consulting, the global managed and advisory services market is expected to almost double during the next four years, reaching $48 billion by 2010, from $26 billion in 2005.

This growth reflects an industry-wide shift from the traditional use of in-house teams to manage network operations and maintenance to more flexible managed services models.
This enables operators to better focus on critical business functions, while upgrading to next-generation capabilities.

“This is the first time that a new company is being formed to tackle the telecom outsourced business as a separate entity. In the wake of this development more such JVs and tie-ups will come up,” say Mercer analysts.

Nokia, which has a large network services business, has announced that it would move its entire line of global managed services to India from Jan 2007. In India, the Nokia Networks business unit has tied up with leading operators like Hutch, Bharti and others to manage their infrastructure services.

WMNetServ is a strategic move for both companies, demonstrating a commitment to investing in services and offering new business opportunities. The joint venture will offer public and private network customers managed services focused on planning, deployment, optimization, security, operations and support services.

“Wipro has a proven track record in delivering managed services and complements Motorola’s expertise in mobility. The combined strength of Wipro and Motorola gives WMNetServ a significant competitive advantage in managed services,” said Srikanth Kannankote, corporate vice president, Motorola.

“Our global delivery model and two decades of experience in telecom outsourcing will enable us to offer scalable operations and cost-effective implementations of turnkey solutions,” said Dr A L Rao, chief operating officer, Wipro.

WMNetServ will host a Global Network Operation Center (GNOC) platform to integrate with Motorola’ s existing NOCs in North America and Europe, providing 24 by 7 network monitoring capabilities to customers.

WMNetServ’s primary delivery center, including the GNOC will be based in
India, while the headquarters and a regional subsidiary for the joint venture will
be established in Europe.

WMNetServ will be led by a Wipro representative while the board of directors will have representation from Wipro and Motorola senior management.