ICIL will be handling the entire software needs of P&O. L C Singh, ceo of ICIL, said that modalities of the deal was being worked out with the UK partner in the next few weeks. A team of P&O is expected to be Pune for thrashing out the nitty-gritties of the deal.

The P&O Nedlloyd director Anton Ratnayake was in Pune at a seminar hosted by ICIL and Computer Society of India on "Gates to a virtual future" Monday, where Singh revealed the company's plans. Singh said that ICIL will be setting up a group of software professionals dedicated for P&O related work. This will be a group of 20 and will go up as work progresses. ICIL is also setting up the first of its kind South Asian Software Support Centre to offer maintenance for software system across platforms. This too will come at the 10 acre campus being developedby ICIL at its Nagar Road complex.

Ratnayake, who is incharge of P&O Nedlloyds' world-wide Millennium Programme, spoke on challenges to the transport industry in the 21st century. He predicted a paradigm shift in business and customer profile. Speed and agility will be the driving force of business.