VAR500: Accenture Debuts SAP Cloud; Cognizant, Wipro Release Earnings

VAR500 Solution Providers See Uptick

VAR500 solution providers Cognizant and Wipro recently announced financial results that showed revenue growth for both solution providers. That follows last month's encouraging earnings news from reseller SHI.

In other VAR500 news, Dimension Data has a new offering that aims to simplify video for customers; Accenture has developed an SAP cloud solution; Sapient will build a European data repository, and TCS has developed a CDMI automated test suite to help promote cloud storage interoperability.

Cognizant Revenue Up Significantly

IT solutions provider Cognizant beat the street with its earnings report showing revenue for its third quarter rising a whopping 32 percent to $1.6 billion from $1.22 billion in the same quarter in 2010. Analysts had expected the latest revenue figure to be slightly less, at $1.58 billion. Cognizant expects fourth quarter revenue to hit $1.66 billion, with fiscal 2011 revenue expected to be at least $6.11 billion, up at least 33 percent compared with 2010.

Wipro Sees IT Services Revenue Boom

Wipro saw its IT services revenue grow to $1.472 billion, in the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2011, an increase of 4.6 percent from the previous quarter and a year-over-year increase of 15.7 percent. Although the global economy still appears uncertain, said Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, the solution provider is betting on its focused investment strategy to see it through. ’We are continuing to see incremental progress in our client mining strategy with 5 customers contributing more than $100 million of revenues and our top customer hitting a revenue run rate upwards of $200 million," explained Suresh Senapaty, Wipro executive director and chief financial officer.

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Dimension Data Sees Opportunities In Visual Communications

Dimension Data has launched its Managed Service for Visual Communications, aimed at easing the challenges involved with video management. ’Just keeping the lights on with video requires massive investments in the necessary management platforms, systems, expertise and experience. While it's possible for organizations to handle video in-house, it's very costly, time consuming, and extremely burdensome for companies that don't manage video as a business," said Terry Dwyer, Dimension Data Director, Visual Communications. "With Managed Services for Visual Communications, our clients can now offload their entire video estate to Dimension Data to manage, rather than use multiple small, local AV companies.’

Accenture Goes To The SAP Cloud

Accenture has developed a private cloud solution in support of SAP applications that lets customers easily migrate to a lower cost, private cloud infrastructure. The SAP ERP application and the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse are transparently migrated to a managed private cloud infrastructure. ’By taking advantage of this new solution, our clients stand to realize a reduction in total cost of ownership, while also benefiting from the ability to quickly deploy new SAP solutions,’ said Kevin Campbell, group chief executive, Technology, Accenture. The solution was created and delivered through collaboration among Accenture, Cisco, NetApp, VMware, Red Hat and RealTech. Its architecture – known as FlexPod – comprises Cisco’s Unified Computing System and NetApp storage.

Sapient To Build European DataWarehouse

The Market Group has selected Sapient Global Markets, a part of VAR500 solution provider Sapient, to construct the European DataWarehouse (ED). ED will be the first European central data repository owned and operated by the market for the market, and Eurosystem is endorsing it. Sapient Global Markets was selected for its delivery capabilities and expertise dealing with risk management and valuation of securitized products. Financial details were not disclosed.

TCS Develops CDMI Automated Test Suite To Support Cloud Storage Interoperability

Tata Consultancy Services has developed the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) Automated Test Suite (CATS), a solution that lets clients test compliance with CDMI specifications, while speeding up the development life cycle of CDMI. The CATS solution fills an industry need for interoperability between cloud storage vendors.