This refers to the report, Satyam, PwC had business links: Report, (FC, May 28). We have read the Gartner report in detail and find no justification for the comment that “the Gartner report indicates that PwC was in a strategic partnership with Satyam”.

We also find no reference to Satyam as PwC’s “system integration partner” in the report.

In our response to our letter dated June 2, you admitted that “The part of ‘strategic partnership’ was our interpretation” (your interpretation). This is precisely the point that we are making — you had drawn a wrong and unsustainable inference.

No PwC firm has ever sought or created a joint business relationship with Satyam Computer Services. The only relationship PwC had with Satyam was as an audit client of Price Waterhouse. In the specific case that your report cited, the company seeking the services contracted with Satyam separately and directly, and not as a result of a joint business relationship between a PwC firm and Satyam.

As stated in our letter dated June 2, PwC has never had a “strategic partnership” with Satyam. The fact that two organisations work for the same client at the same time does not indicate that they are in a “strategic partnership.” To project such a perception is a distortion of facts that we must protest against. It has created a misleading perception of a relationship that does not and never did

exist.

While your correspondent did contact us before writing the report, this was perfunctory, without any reasonable timeframe to respond. Going through the motions of giving us an opportunity to respond, without adequate time to do so across geographies, is patently unfair to us.

Sharmila A Karve

Partner, Price Waterhouse

Ritwik Mukherjee replies: The Gartner report that we quoted said the opposite of what Price Waterhouse now contends — that “No PwC firm has ever sought or created a joint business relationship with Satyam Computer Services.” The report, which was extensively quoted in our story of May 28, quoted PwC’s US advisory strategy leader Joe Duffy at the PwC’s analyst day, as stating: “We are full scale in the implementation and integration business.” According to Gartner, “PwC clarified that its implementation stops short of coding for large-scale customisation of business applications. The firm offered an example wherein its India-based operations performed the coding for a client’s financial data warehouse, but a system integration partner coded the business application customisation.”

To demonstrate the range of its capabilities, PwC offered two case studies with clients and engagement teams: One was Idearc, a $3 billion Verizon spin-off and the other Microsoft. “With Idearc, PwC was engaged through the full project life cycle leading to the one-day flash cutover to Idearc’s new systems. Much of this engagement occurred while PwC was still under the IBM non-compete agreement, and Satyam Computer Services did much of the system integration work,” the Gartner report said.

In our report, we called into question the propriety of PwC having any business relationship with Satyam while its arm was auditing Satyam. The Gartner report pointed to a business relationship between PwC and Satyam, whatever name one may give it. As regards PwC’s response, a questionnaire had been sent to PwC’s India and global office, followed with phone calls. We waited for two days. On the second day, a company spokesperson, through SMS, said that the official agency would send PW’s (or PwC’s) response by the evening. The response never came, nor was any time sought for the reply. In fact, rather than being “patently unfair,” we were trying to be overly fair.