Hexaware's executive director P K Sridharan said that the company is close to bagging a couple of contracts in the UK and India in B2B commerce. It would provide consultancy, the right type of architecture and networking, web hosting and maintenance of services. Venture capitalists of dot com companies overseas who are now less reluctant to fund lavishly are realising that India would be a cheaper place to back up such IT services.

While Hexaware is not averse to part fund some companies taking on the role of the incubator - if the enterprise provided value. It has a basket of WAP products on hand, which would also be customised to the requirements of the dot coms for mobile e-commerce. These solutions are also targeted towards large companies in insurance, banking and financial services as well as travel and airline companies.

It is currently talking to more than 30 customers overseas, largely in Europe and US. According to Sridharan in the past, various applications were integrated, but more in a spaghetti-like manner. Applications were in this instance batch processed and data transfer time was very slow. EAI was systematic and orderly and more accountable. Companies who had last year put their energies toward the Y2K solutions were now eager to do EAI. Forty per cent of Hexaware's business comes from application management, many of them mission critical.

Two large orders from insurance companies were on the anvil from US and the UK. The former would generate an order worth Rs 92 crore and the latter Rs 100 crore to be spread over three years. A massive expansion of Hexaware is in the offing with new premises in Mumbai and Chennai. Marketing subsidiaries are going to be set up in the far east, US, Germany and South Africa. The company will come out with an IPO at the end of the year for its expansion requirements. Some of the funds would also be used for acquisitions.