The first of good news came when Finance Minister hiked the maximum permissible FII limit in Indian companies from 30 to 40 per cent. With Infosys being FIIs' favourite stock, institutional interest in Infosys is expected to continue in the days to come. Recently, Infosys Technologies Limited kicked off its incubation initiative to mentor business ideas by launching Onscan - a comprehensive notification service for web users.

Onscan is a product proposal from a group of its employees. The company's move will not only motivate employees in coming up with innovative ideas, it will also help Infosys in improving its bottomline when the venture start making money. Infosys Limited has signed a five-year contract valued at 28 million with British retailing chain Sainsbury's Supermarkets Limited.

Infosys has entered into a partnership with SAP AG to assist in developing and co-sourcing mySAP.com Marketplace. These two are also expected to add substantially to company's bottomline. Other than these positivenewsflow, the counter has seen many rumours doing rounds. Rumours of a liberal bonus issue from the company have seen speculators flock to the counter. There are also rumours of Infosys making a bid for a big US-based software company.

Although none of these rumours could be confirmed, for operators who have taken position at the counter, it is as good as done. Meanwhile, Infosys in the process of shifting its focus towards high growth and high margin e-commerce business.

In the third quarter ended December 31, 1999, Infosys intensified efforts at e-inventing itself by making a conscious transition from Y2K to e-commerce. The e-commerce revenue in the third quarter of FY 2000 was 15.6 per cent against 6.4 per cent and 10.3 per cent in the first and second quarters of 1999-2000, respectively.

In the third quarter, Infosys undertook two key projects. The first relates to the execution of projects in the area of optical networking for a leading developer of next-generation optical transport products. The other is the development of an Internet-based pricing tool for a large drug store chain in the US.

Infosys has also entered into a series of strategic alliances and partnerships for e-commerce/software services with players such as Amazon, EC Cubed, Value America, Cybersource, Aetna and HNC Retek, and recently Aon Corporation, which will strengthen its presence in software development and e-commerce related services. The company is likely to clock a turnover of Rs 850-900 crore for the full year and a net profit of over Rs 280 crore. On an equity base of Rs 33.07 crore, this translates into an EPS of Rs 42.33 (on a Rs 5 face value share).