Deutsche Telekom is going to offload its IT systems integration division T-Systems, according to local reports.

The report in German weekly newspaper Focus claims that Indian conglomerate Tata has had an undisclosed offer accepted by the German telecoms company.

DT employs about 13,000 IT specialists. The German paper reckons half that number could lose their jobs as Tata relocates the business to India.

With news of Nokia’s plans to close down its Bochum handset manufacturing plant fresh in the mind it’s a worrying time for German IT experts.

Also in India, Nokia Siemens Networks today announced that it has been awarded a pan-India contract from Bharti Airtel Limited for deployment of a single interactive voice response (IVR) platform.

The platforms are HP OCMP (Open Call Management Platform), Video Gateway, Televoting Application and ASR/TTS (Automatic Speech Recognition / Text-to-Speech Engine. The solution will be ready for commercial operation by April 2008 and is expected to scale up to one billion minutes of usage per month in three years for Bharti Airtel.

“Our decision to select Nokia Siemens Networks as our partner in this programme is based on their project delivery record,” said Manoj Kohli, president and CEO, Bharti Airtel Limited. “Their single IVR Solution and Voice Service Delivery Platform is based on a best-of-breed integrated approach which will result in cost optimisation and increased security, a key prerequisite for building world class services.”