The future is still unfolding...
Shell inks $100 mln IBM deal to build IT centres
(UPDATE: adds details, companies' comment, previous TECHNOLOGY-IBM, previous LONDON)
SAN FRANCISCO, July 6 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch/Shell Group (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: SHEL.L) has signed a five-year deal worth at least $100 million with International Business Machines Corp.(NYSE:IBM - news) for computer and storage equipment and software to help consolidate the oil giant's technology works, the firms said on Friday.
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Shell is building three ``MegaCentre'' information technology hubs in Kuala Lumpur, The Hague and Houston that it will run in-house, aiming to cut costs and standardize equipment and operations.
The deal, to support SAP AG software and other electronic business software, is in addition to others by Shell, which is standardizing on Oracle Corp.(NasdaqNM:ORCL - news) database software and plans to announce a telecommunications deal soon, said Alan Matula, Shell's General Manager, IT Projects and Solutions.
``It isn't one partner or one thing,'' he said.
In the IBM deal, products like servers and storage would be re-priced every quarter to assure Shell was not locked in at high prices as technology quickly improved, he said.
``They are only going to buy IBM equipment, and in return we are giving them very attractive pricing,'' said Mike Borman, vice president of IBM's server group. The $100 million value of the deal was a minimum figure, he said.
Matula said Shell wanted all its regional units to use the same business processes, instead of reinventing the wheel, essentially, for every new project. ``We are not doing this for technology's sake,'' he said.
Shell will run the operations, declining to outsource, since it could not find a single services company that could handle all the components of the system, from telecommunications to hardware and software, Matula said.
``That is not to say in two to three years this might not be an outside play,'' he said. |
