Ramco Systems spurted 6.6 per cent to Rs 475 on BSE on the back of recent order wins.

The scrip hit a high of Rs 483.90, earlier. Around 146,000 Ramco Systems shares were traded so far.

Of late, the scrip has proved buoyant as the market digested news about some important developments in the company. From Rs 381.05 on 10 January 2003, the scrip has surged 24.6 per cent in just three trading sessions to the current Rs 475. From Rs 118.25 on 12 November 2002 it gained a staggering 301 per cent in just two months.

As per market talk, operators are behind the surge in the counter. There's news going round that Rakesh Jhunjhunwala has mopped up major chunks of the stock.

On Monday, Ramco Systems said that it had won an order from Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanam to develop an integrated system for front-office solutions and back-office automation for various departments.

Ramco Systems will be working closely with Reliance Infocomm, part of the Reliance Group, which will be carrying out the infrastructure provisioning for Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanam.

Last month, Ramco Systems announced that it bagged a work order from the Andhra Pradesh government to design, deploy and implement human resources management solutions (HRMS), self-service and learning management solutions.

The order is to develop, implement and rollout next-generation HRMS. The consortium, led by Ramco Systems, comprises Hewitt Associates and The Boston Group, the company then stated.

The company then said that the consortium could bag this order on the strength of a word-class application building expertise channelled through a unique web-based rapid solution delivery infrastructure called Ramco VirtualWorks(tm) along with global HR consulting and learning management systems experience.

Ramco Systems, the erstwhile software business division of Ramco Industries, was de-merged effective 1 April 1999.

Ramco Systems provides a range of software products and services centered on the enterprise computing market.

The Ramco e.applications family of enterprise solutions covers over 15 industries in four broad areas - enterprise resource management (ERP), enterprise asset management (EAM), human resources management, and e-commerce.

The company has installed its ERP software at over 100 client sites in India.

The company has established offices in the US, Switzerland, Malaysia and Singapore, and also a branch office in the UK for marketing and implementing software developed in India.

Previously, a pure ERP company and a major player in that segment, Ramco System's fortunes were hit in the last couple of years as the ERP market went into a tailspin. A global slowdown in the IT sector added to its woes.

With a view to diversify, Ramco Systems made the transition from a pure ERP product firm into a complete vendor of solutions and services of enterprise applications.

But to do so, it had to invest big in e.applications, a Net-based transaction processing solution for enterprises, and RamcoVirtualworks, a component-based architecture in which an application is developed by assembling pre-built components (thus cutting cost and time).

For the second quarter ended 30 September 2002, the company registered a net loss of Rs 6.17 crore (Rs 61.7 million) compared to a loss of Rs 2.69 crore (Rs 26.9 million) in the corresponding period last year. Net sales declined by 15.5 per cent to Rs 25.47 crore (Rs 254.7 million) from Rs 30.47 crore (Rs 304.7 million) in SQ 2001.

In FY 2001-02, the company reported a net loss of Rs 8.76 crore (Rs 87.6 million) as against a net profit of Rs 1.04 crore (Rs 10.4 million) in FY 2000-01. Net sales fell 21.9 per cent in FY 2001-02 to Rs 93.84 crore (Rs 938.4 million) from Rs 120.24 crore (Rs 1.202 billion) in FY 2000-01.