Satyam's Hollwood Connection

Respected India outsourcing giant Satyam Computer Services is chatting with Hollywood giants including Disney -- and, by association, Pixar Animation Studios -- about picking up some post-production work related to animation. It's just one of the services offered by the company's Media and Entertainment Practice.

You've already seen the India firm's contributions on the silver screen in work it did for the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

While the integrator has always had a practice focused on media companies, Satyam Senior Vice President Kevin English, who took on his role about four months ago, said the practice is cranking up its solutions for application such as digital asset management, animation and special effects. Tasks the integrator is addressing include content creation, conversion of existing media to Web-friendly formats, storage and management, search and presentation rights management. About 60 percent of the practice's existing business is tied to Satyam's traditional strengths in application development related to SAP, Oracle and Siebel enterprise software.

Its newer vendor partners include Mark Logic, which offers software for XML content management, and Stilo, which bills its technology as software for content engineering. In its brochure, the integrator boasts creative animation and production skills in Maya, 3ds max, Holomatix Blaze3D, Cult3D, Adobe and Macromedia.

Overall, the media and entertainment group employs 700 people, English says, about 20 percent of whom are based in the United States. This doesn't take into account about 250 folks in India who handle animation post-production work, often for companies creating content for digital games.

Aside from ongoing discussions with Disney and Pixar, English says to expect a couple of creative deals with Hollywood within about a month's time. Existing clients include 4K Animation, based in Berlin, and Spirit Media, which hails from Portland, Ore.