21.10.16

Wipro to buy US co Appirio

Wipro has agreed to buy a US-based company which helps organisations migrate software applications to the cloud, continuing a streak of acquisitions which has seen the seen it spend over $1.1 billion so far this year. Wipro said it is paying $500 million Rs.3,300 crore) to buy Appirio, which is based in Indianapolis and counts Sales force, General Atlantic Partners and Sequoia as investors. This is its second-biggest acquisition after data centre provider Infocrossing, for which it paid $600 million in 2007.
Wipro said the acquisition would give it one of the largest cloud transformation practices in the world. The deal also brings along TopCoder, a crowdsourcing marketplace connecting over a million designers, developers and data scientists with customers. Appirio, which was established in 2006, has 1,250 employees worldwide, including in Jaipur. The acquisition is expected to close at the end of the year.
By buying Appirio, Wipro hopes to be positioning itself to cash in better on the opportunities in the so-called cloud, where software services are delivered remotely from data centres using the internet. Enterprises are increasing adopting cloud technologies to cash in on the ease of deploying sophisticated solutions as well as cost advantages, and as they do so companies such as Appirio can help move applications to the cloud. Wipro will consolidate its existing cloud applications practices of CRM software from Salesforce and HR software from Workday under the Appirio brand and structure. Appirio CEO Chris Barbin will run the combined cloud services business.
In April, Appirio fended off rumours of a sale saying that it was working towards an IPO. Its clients include Starbucks, NYSE Euronext, Honeywell, AIG-Edison, Toyota and Facebook.
In a blog post on the Appirio site, Barbin said the acquisition made sense for his company because the combination could offer more technologies and put it in a better position to take on competition such as Accenture and Deloitte. Also helping was the fact that Wipro's offerings will now be under the Appirio brand.
Appirio does not disclose its revenue but the Indianapolis Business Journal said the company pulled in $200 million in revenue last year.It had raised about $111 million from investors.
Reuner added that having Barbin stay on as head of the business, and reverse-integrating Wipro's cloud offerings into Appirio was a sign of how important Wipro felt the deal was. Appirio is Wipro's fourth acquisition since April 2015.
In February 2016, Wipro had acquired Florida-based technology firm Healthplan Services for $460 million.
Before that Wipro bought Denmark-based Designit for 85 million euro and German IT consulting firm Cellent AG for 73.5 million euros. Its $130 million acquisition of Viteos Group was cancelled due to delays in closing the transaction.

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