Michael,
speaking of wins:
Monday August 27 10:20 AM ET
Vignette, IBM in Multimillion-Dollar IRS Project
By Ilaina Jonas
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Software maker Vignette Corp. (Nasdaq:VIGN - news) has won a deal from IBM that could be worth up to $100 million over three years as part of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites)'s massive plan to upgrade its technology, people familiar with the deal said on Monday.
Vignette has already received $18 million from International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news), the sources said. However, IBM has not yet signed a deal with the IRS as details are still being worked out, an IRS representative said.
Neither IBM nor Austin, Texas-based Vignette would comment on the matter.
Vignette and IBM will work together on one project involving IRS employee Web sites and on another to create a Web site to serve professional tax preparers, such as H&R Block, the sources said.
IBM is slated to host both sites. Vignette will supply the software used to track, tag and manage the content on Web pages.
Last month in his quarterly conference call with analysts, Vignette Chairman and Chief Executive Greg Peters said the company had signed a deal with the federal government. The deal, he said, would account for at least 10 percent of the revenue Vignette expects to generate in the third quarter
In a third deal, Vignette also will be involved with consulting firm Accenture Ltd. (NYSE:ACN - news), the world's largest consulting firm, in a $33 million project announced last week to overhaul the IRS' public Web site, IRS.gov. Last year, the agency's public Web site got 2.5 billion visits.
Accenture declined to reveal how much Vignette would be paid.
The Web site projects are part of the IRS' Business Systems Modernization program to upgrade all of its technology. Congress has given the IRS $432 million this year and is expected to kick in another $390 million for fiscal 2002. The upgrade, involving a private consortium led by Computer Sciences Corp. (NYSE:CSC - news), is expected to take about 10 to 15 years to complete.
PeopleSoft Inc. (Nasdaq:PSFT - news), also is involved in the IRS tax preparers' site, under a $10 million deal for its customer relationship management software.
The customer relationship management software will enable certified tax preparers to securely gain access to their customers' records. The site is intended to help accelerate the agency's goal of getting more people to file electronically, said Ron Sullivan, vice president and general manager of PeopleSoft's Federal Group.
The IRS could expand the deal with PeopleSoft as it determines how to conduct more of its business over the Web, Sullivan said.
``It's a journey that they're undertaking,'' Sullivan told Reuters. ``The movement on this is a statement of intent as opposed to a final act.''
Shares of Vignette traded at $7.24 a share, up 37 cent, or more than 5 percent in early morning trading on the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, IBM shares were up 29 cents, or less than a percent, to $107.28 on the New York Stock Exchange |
