IBM has signed a $1.2bn, eight-year outsourcing deal
with tyre company Michelin.
Under the terms of the agreement, IBM will take over the
management and maintenance of Michelin's IT infrastructure in North
America and Europe.
IBM said it will be responsible for IT production operations and
management, user support, technical support, servers, workstations,
PCs, software and production applications.
Approximately 600 Michelin employees will move to IBM in the
first quarter of 2004.
Earlier this week, IBM signed a deal with Zurich Financial
Services to manage about 65,000 "electronic workplaces", which
include desktop PCs, laptop PCs, printers and software.
The deal is thought to be worth $450m to $500m.
The Zurich Financial contract is among the first of its kind won
by IBM since it announced in November its push to sell desktop
services through its new Workplace offering, which bundles a
variety of IBM desktop outsourcing offerings.
Linda Rosencrance writes for Computerworld