Wipro, VMware announce cloud services partnership

Homegrown information technology (IT) services major, Wipro, on Friday announced a partnership with US-based cloud computing service provider, VMware. The partnership will see Wipro maintain a VMware business unit to offer the latter’s platform as a service to its clients.

Among other services, Wipro’s partnership with VMware will offer the latter’s cloud computing and remote work platform, which will allow enterprises to offer their security standards and other services to a distributed workforce.

Jason Eichenholz, senior vice-president and global head of ecosystems and partnerships at Wipro, said in a statement that the move could allow businesses to “simplify the management of multi-cloud infrastructure”.

In a press statement, Wipro said that it will train up to 5,000 professionals in VMware’s cross-cloud services, which will offer multi-cloud enterprise tools and focus on sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare, and consumer and retail services.

The partnership announcement comes a week after Rishad Premji, chairman of Wipro, said as part of his session at Invest Karnataka 2022 that the pandemic helped accelerate adoption of cloud platforms and data analytics — business areas that have turned out to be beneficial for IT service providers.

In the September earnings season, all of India’s IT services majors, such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HCLTech and Wipro, noted a sustained total contracted value (TCV) from businesses from the North American and European markets, buoyed by cloud transformation demand from enterprises.

However, industry analysts and experts noted that while partnerships, such as Wipro and VMware’s, may continue to come through, the volume of large deals and partnerships for IT service firms in the country may decline on the face of macroeconomic headwinds such as concerns due to rising inflation in western markets.

A slowdown of investments in experimental and advanced business units in sectors such as BFSI and manufacturing could also lead to muted business quarters for IT service firms, at least until H1CY23.