It’s a wrap: News this week (April 20–26)

There have been multiple developments this week on the tech front. From earnings announcement to the launch of Phi 3, this is the list of the most important developments for a quick catch-up:

Happiest Minds acquires PureSoftware Technologies

Indian IT services and consulting firm Happiest Minds Technologies announced on Thursday that it has acquired Noida-based PureSoftware Technologies for $94.5 million (₹779 crore). With its 1,200-strong workforce, PureSoftware will augment the capabilities and services offerings to Happiest Minds' product and digital engineering services (PDES) business unit.

Former TechM CEO launches new venture

Rahul Bhatia, Group Managing Director of InterGlobe Enterprises, which oversees IndiGo, on Tuesday said that its company has partnered with CP Gurnani, the former CEO of Tech Mahindra, to establish ‘AIonOS’, an artificial intelligence (AI) venture. This collaboration focuses on delivering AI services, data engineering solutions, and a data harmonisation platform, said Bhatia who informed the company’s vision of integrating AI technology across diverse industries.

IT services Q4FY24 earnings

This week, IT services firms LTIMindtree, Tech Mahindra, and HCLTech announced their earnings results for the fourth quarter and the entire fiscal.

LTIMindtree reported quarterly revenue of ₹8892.9 crore, increased by 2.3% year-on-year (YoY) from the previous year while facing a decline of 1.3% sequentially. For the entire FY24, the revenue stood at ₹36,218.9 crore, up by 7.3% compared to FY25. The company reported a net profit of ₹1,100.7 crore, declining by 1.2% YoY basis. 

Tech Mahindra on Thursday, reported a 40.9% fall in net profit to ₹661 crore YoY or the fourth quarter that ended March 31, compared to the corresponding period last year. The company's revenue from operations in the fourth quarter of the fiscal fell 6.2% to ₹12,871.3 crore. On a quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) basis, revenue was down by 1.8%, but net profit was up by 29.5% during the period. CEO Mohit Joshi revealed a three-year roadmap for growth, organisational restructuring, improvements and investments, and synergising with other Mahindra Group businesses.

HCLTech posted a revenue of ₹ 28,499 crore, up 0.2% QoQ and up 7.1% YoY. For the entire fiscal, the company’s revenue stood at ₹109,913 crore, up 8.3%. Further, HCLSoftware, the software business unit of HCLTech announced that it has been selected by State Bank of India (SBI) for their MarTech solution as part of SBI’s digital transformation program. 

Microsoft launches its smallest AI model yet

On Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled the latest version of its ‘lightweight’ AI model — the Phi-3-Mini. It is a family of open AI models which Microsoft describes as the most capable and cost-effective small language models (SLMs) available. Microsoft is now making the first in that family of more powerful small language models publicly available — Phi-3-mini, measuring 3.8 billion parameters, which performs better than models twice its size, the company said.