Wipro chairman says Cisco and Microsoft alliance with foreign companies worth $2b

Customising software and providing technical support for customers of Cisco, the world’s largest maker of networking equipment, Microsoft, the biggest software company, SAP AG and EMC Corp. will each add at least $500 million in annual revenue, Chairman Azim Premji said in an interview in New Delhi.

“In the two to 2 1/2-year timeframe these partnerships should be able to generate revenue in excess of half a billion dollars per alliance per year,” Premji said in an interview in New Delhi while attending the India Economic Summit. “The alliances with Cisco and Microsoft are larger than that.”

Allying with Microsoft, more than 15 times larger by sales and market value than Wipro, gives billionaire Premji access to larger clients in the U.S. and Europe. Wipro needs to boost revenue in its global unit, its biggest revenue earner, to lift its shares, the third-worst performer on India’s benchmark Sensitive Index this year.

Bangalore-based Wipro last month forecast revenue in its global computer-services unit will rise to $905 million in the current quarter.

Shares of Wipro have declined 24 per cent in 2007, compared with a 41 per cent gain in the index, as investors grew concerned about the strengthening rupee and a slowdown in orders from the US. The rupee has gained more than 11 per cent against the dollar this year, making it Asia’s second-best performer, eroding the value of earnings repatriated from the U.S., Wipro’s largest market. The strengthening rupee led Wipro to post its slowest profit growth in more two years as operating margins were pared by 3.4 percentage points.