Ashok Soota venture to be called MindTree Consultancy

BANGALORE, August17: The new venture of 57-year-old Ashok Soota and Co will be called
MindTree Consultancy. Mr. Soota recently resigned as Wipro vice chairman to start an
e-commerce solutions company. Others who have joined Mr Soota are, N. Krishna Kumar,
Subroto Baagchi, Kalyan Banerjee, N.S. Parthasarathy, Anjan Lahiri, Scott Staples, Kamran
and Rasto Ravananan.

The brainchild of Mr Krishna Kumar and Mr Baagchi, the two decided on a mid-sized,
highly focused business where e-commerce is the core word. Later, when plans worked out,
they met six more like-minded people who joined this venture, last of who was Mr Soota.
MindTree got the complete shape with reins in the hands of Mr Soota. According to Mr
Krishna Kumar, "We are in the third stage of the pyramid where we provide IT
solutions for vendors. We crossed the basic stages of talent donation and system
integration business of the pyramid. Here we compete with companies like Viant and Scient.
Our mission is business enabling software in partnership with the customer."

MindTree will be headquartered in Bangalore. The new company is planning to have three
more development centers in the US, the UK and Far East, where Krishna Kumar is likely to
head the US office. The company is projecting to do a business of $123 million with a
manpower of 1,000 by the year 2005. From day one, the company is offering stock options to
its employees across the board.