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Agilent in $14.5m Tata deal

By Iain Scott, ITWeb group consulting editor
Johannesburg, 10 Jan 2006

New York-listed Agilent Technologies has won a $14.5 million deal with India`s primary communications service providers, Videsh Sanchar Nigam and Tata Teleservices.

Concilium Technologies, Agilent`s sole authorised distributor in southern Africa, says the Indian companies are to use the Agilent Operational Support System (OSS) solutions to form their Mumbai-based centralised network management system.

The system is aimed at managing the companies` international and national telecoms services.

The deal included Agilent OSS QoS Manager and NETeXPERT-based network management software products.

Tata Teleservices, together with subsidiary Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra), has 4.58 million customers in more than 1 400 towns in India.

Videsh Sanchar Nigam, formerly wholly owned by the Indian government, has been under the management of Tata since the government, as part of a disinvestment plan, released some of its equity in 2002.

Its American Depositary Receipts are traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The Indian government owns about 26% equity, with the balance held by Tata investing M/S Panatone Finvest (45%) overseas stakeholders (13%) and Indian institutions and the public.

Agilent Technologies, which had net revenue of $7.2 billion in fiscal year 2004, was spun off from Hewlett-Packard in 1999.

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