IBM Helps Religare Go Green in a US$3.1 Million Agreement

Deploys Three Scalable Modular Data Centers, Reducing Power Costs by 30-35%

BANGALORE, INDIA - IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is deploying three energy-efficient and green Scalable Modular Data Centers (SMDCs) in a US$3.1 million IT infrastructure services agreement with Religare Enterprises Limited (REL), which is one of the leading integrated financial services groups of India.

IBM is designing, building and will be maintaining highly scalable, modular and energy-efficient green data centers in Delhi, Noida and Mumbai for REL. In addition, IBM will put in place the networking infrastructure and a disaster recovery solution for the company. The solution implemented by IBM will help REL reduce annual power costs by 30-35% and enable them to effectively meet technology requirements of the company’s expanding business.

REL is a key financial services provider and a major player in the Indian equity and securities market. To increase its market share while handling the increasing volumes of trading, the company needed to put in place a highly scalable yet resilient data center infrastructure. At the same time, REL needed to ensure high operational cost-efficiency, given that power consumption is a major factor in any company’s operational cost. IBM’s SMDC design, which leverages high density computing and precision air-conditioning, ensures a saving of more than 3600 units (KWH) per day in power consumption alone as compared to an 8,000 sq ft conventional data center. In a year, this represents a saving of nearly US$250,000 (nearly Rs one crore).

“Religare is a financial services powerhouse and we have ambitious growth plans. We are confident that our partnership with IBM will provide us with a distinct competitive edge in the market,” said Shachindra Nath, Group Chief Operating Officer, Religare Enterprises Limited.

“IBM engaged with us from the very beginning to understand our critical business needs and design appropriate solutions. IBM’s unmatched expertise to design and build a globally benchmarked, standardized, scalable and energy-efficient facility will certainly support our dynamic growth plans effectively.”

Nipun Mehrotra, Vice President & General Manager, Global Technology Services, IBM India/S Asia, said, “In these economically difficult times, companies across the board want solutions that can help them achieve greater operational efficiency and save costs. Religare’s choice of IBM as its preferred IT infrastructure services partner re-affirms our undisputed leadership in the green data center space and commitment to help clients ’Do more with Less.’ IBM’s consultative approach helped Religare with the process of design finalization & product selection, and ensured the final solution was miles ahead of those offered by the other large competitors in India.”

To bring greater value to its customers, REL has been relying on best-in-class technology solutions. The partnership with IBM will help REL further strengthen its position as one of the leading integrated financial services groups of India. The data center solution deployed by IBM would support all of REL’s current applications as well many others that are scheduled for future roll-out.

IBM continues to command a strong leadership in the data center space and has built over 300,000 sq ft raised floor of data center space in the country. The company has already deployed green data centers for over a dozen clients in the country.

About Religare Enterprises Limited
Religare Enterprises Limited (REL) is one of the leading integrated financial services groups of India. REL’s businesses are broadly clubbed across three key verticals, the Retail, Institutional and Wealth spectrums, catering to a diverse and wide base of clients.

The vision is to build Religare as a globally trusted brand in the financial services domain and present it as the ’Investment Gateway of India.’ All employees of the group guided by an experienced and professional management team are committed to providing financial care, backed by the core values of diligence and transparency.

REL offers a multitude of investment options and a diverse bouquet of financial services with its pan India reach in more than 1550 locations across more than 460 cities and towns. REL also currently operates from 10 countries globally following its acquisition of London’s oldest brokerage & investment firm, Hichens, Harrison & Co. plc.

With a view to expand, diversify and introduce offerings benchmarked against global best practices, Religare operates its Life Insurance business in partnership with the global major -- Aegon. For its wealth management business Religare has partnered with Australia based financial services major-Macquarie. Religare has also partnered with Vistaar Entertainment to launch India’s first SEBI approved Film Fund offering a unique alternative asset class of investments.

For more information, visit: http://www.religare.in

About IBM’s Project Big Green
In May 2007, IBM launched Project Big Green to help clients around the world improve the efficiency of IT and better optimize their data center resources. IBM invested US$1 billion to increase the efficiency of IBM products to help data centers reduce energy consumption, demonstrating its energy efficiency by consolidating up to 3,900 computer servers onto about 30 System z servers running Linux operating system and virtualization technology. In the past year, IBM has engaged with more than 2,000 clients, delivering a variety of hardware, software and services technologies to help businesses reduce data center energy consumption and cut energy costs by more than 40 percent. For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/green.

For more information, visit www.ibm.com/services