TCS bullish on China, to start JV with Microsoft: Ramadorai
The Free Press Journal — September 26, 2005

Tata Consultancy Services is bullish on China and the strategic partnership it has forged with the Chinese government and Microsoft to provide IT outsourcing services and solutions to be operationalised early next year to scale up the company's operations, S Ramadorai, CEO and MD of the Indian software giant said. Ramadorai, who is here, heading a high-level NASSCOM delegation of CEOs to China, said that the TCS-Sino-India Cooperative Office (SICO)-Microsoft venture is expected to start functioning in first quarter of 2006.

"The whole idea is how to you scale it up and how do you take our operations in China forward," Ramadorai told PTI. The joint venture to be located in Beijing's Zhongguancun Software Park, will provide IT outsourcing services and solutions to all major world-wide markets particularly US, Europe and the Asia Pacific region including China's domestic market. The key objective of the global initiative is to build the new venture as a role-model for the growing Chinese software industry, he said.

"We believe in long-term commitment to the Chinese market," he said while noting that TCS has been operating in China since 2002 and delivering services and solutions to its global, regional, and domestic customers from its Global Delivery Centre at Hangzhou with the help of over 250 engineers. TCS has also set up a 100 per cent owned subsidiary called Tata Information Technology (Shanghai) Co Ltd, for its China operations which is based in the eastern metropolis, Shanghai. On India-China cooperation in the IT sector, Ramadorai said the two Asian giants represent two of the fastest-growing economies in the world and their e-business ambitions are intersecting.