contracts

BEA has signed a $5m (£3.1m) agreement with Northwest airlines. The airline will standardise on the BEA E-commerce Transaction Platform across the organisation in a bid to provide access to distributed data worldwide and support future business-to-consumer and business-to-business initiatives. BEA also announced deals with Delta and British Airways.

Talus to manage cargo revenue

Talus Solutions has agreed to implement a cargo revenue management system for Zurich-based airfreight company Swisscargo. Under the deal, worth more than £3m, Swisscargo will license Talus' CargoRMS. Atraxis Cargo Solutions, which operate, integrate and maintain IT services for the Swissair Group, will support the system. The 12-month roll-out will begin in June.

New warranty system for Ford

Ford is driving ahead with a warranty reporting system from Information Builders worth in the region of £110,000. Ford will run the enterprise Focus 6 system on a Windows platform - it will replace a mainframe-based reporting system. Sales companies across Europe will use it to identify and resolve warranty payment and vehicle quality issues.

AFAto handle Namibian bank transactions

Treasury and risk management software supplier AFA has won a £320,000 contract with Bank Windhoek of Namibia. The Musketeer system will handle bank transactions from front-office through to back-office. It runs on a Windows NT platform on client-server architecture. AFA will integrate Musketeer with the Bank's legacy systems and support it via an annual licence fee contract.

Primus beats off BT to win Hepworth contact

Primus has beaten off competition from BT, Cable & Wireless and WorldCom to win a contract with heating and building products group Hepworth. Under the deal, worth £1.2m annually, Primus will supply voice telephony to the 56 Hepworth sites. Future plans include the provision of Internet services. Previously, Hepworth used multiple suppliers for national and international calls.

German Chambers of Commerce takes up ERP

The German Chambers of Commerce has bought an ERP system from Unify in a deal worth $1.7m (£1.1m). It will use IHK Verdi, an application from Unify and its partner TMG Systemhaus, to register companies, provide business information and offer legal advice. The Chambers is replacing its mainframe with a central Siemens Unix-based cluster for 4,000 concurrent users.

Council outsources payroll to ADP Chessington

Buckinghamshire County Council has agreed to outsource its payroll facility to public sector services provider ADP Chessington. Under the £4m contract, ADP will take over payroll processing for 27,000 employees and pensioners. The council said that since payroll was essentially an administrative function that was not directly associated with services provision, it was "an ideal operation to place externally".

Tertio to reorganise FSA's helpdesk

The Financial Services Authority has selected service management firm Tertio to reorganise its internal IT helpdesk. The new helpdesk will unify previously disparate systems to give a single point of contact using Tertio's Service Desk software and Remedy's Action Request System running Windows NT 4. The contract is worth between £40,000 and £60,000.

B2B solution for Japanese supermarket giant

Kasumi, owner of Japan's largest chain of supermarkets and shopping centres, has signed a multi-million pound deal with the eXcelon Corporation. Kasumi's corporate headquarters will be supplied with eXcelon's Dynamic B2B Solutions. The software will be used to exchange data about store layouts, sales promotions, merchandise exchanges and product availability among the stores, restaurants and suppliers.