British cellular firm Vodafone, which grabbed a majority stake in India's Hutchison Essar Ltd. for $10.9 billion in cash in May, just announced they signed an outsourcing deal with Armonk, N.Y-based IBM Corp. IBM is to take over all of the Indian JV's (Vodafone Essar Ltd.) information technology-related work. Deal terms were not disclosed, but the AP reported that a similar agreement IBM made with Idea Cellular, whose network and subscriber base is half that of Vodafone Essar, is expected to be worth between $600 million and $800 million over 10 years.

Separately today, IBM just received word from the European Commission on its proposed $745 million acquisition of Swedish software maker Telelogic AB. The EU suspended its review of the deal in late November pending the receipt of more information. Now that they have said information, the new deadline is set for March 19.

IBM reported 3Q net income of $2.4 billion on revenue of $24.1 billion. — Baz Hiralal

Go to the Vodafone story
See the EU news for Telelogic

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