According to Infosys, to support the partnership, the company will provide aproduct competency centre that will function as a virtual extension ofCephren. "As per the terms of the agreement, the tie up will encompass fourprimary collaborative areas including product development, quality assuranceand maintenance, systems integration, and professional services," Infosyssaid in a statement. According to Infosys, Cephren is a key provider ofonline collaboration and e-commerce services for the global constructionindustry. Cephren allows building professionals to use the web to sharedocuments, to collaborate on construction projects and to procure goods andservices.

"Our partnership with Infosys allows us to leverage not only their systemsintegration expertise, but also their best practices approach to productdevelopment, quality assurance and maintenance," Cephren co-founder andchief technology officer Ashok Segu said.

Infosys Technologies managing director Nandan Nilekani said B2B e-commercefor the construction industry is witnessing tremendous growth. "Ourknowledge of the latest technologies, combined with the Infosys globaldelivery model, provides rapid time-to-market and other significant benefitsfor Cephren customers," Nilekani said.

The recent alliances with industry majors have triggered the share prices ofthe software bluechip to shoot through the roof. On Tuesday, the Infosysscrip touched the upper limit on both the premier exchanges in India andclosed at Rs 12,790 on the BSE. The scrip has been in the limelight ofinvestors over the past few days.

Industry sources say that the sharp rise in the share price was mainly dueto its recent alliance with Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd, one of the UK'slargest supermarket chains. It is also setting up its its first EuropeanProximity Development Centre (PDC) in the UK. The contract with thesupermarket chain is valued at 28 million pound sterling. The company isalso planning to develop Onscan-a comprehensive notification service for webusers, as a product proposal from a group of its employees. The company hadearlier announced its intention to incubate some of the business ideas ofour employees and mentor them.

Onscan is one such proposal. Onscan is a comprehensive notification servicefor web users. Onscan notifies a user when anything of their interestunfolds on the web. The notification can be received anywhere-on thedesktop, pager, mobile phone or e-mail. The company had also forged analliance with SAP AG, the leading provider of inter-enterprise softwaresolutions, to assist in developing and co-sourcing the mySAP.comMarketplace.