Mahesh Sharma | August 19, 2008
CSC's grip on its lucrative $700 million outsourcing contract with BHP Billiton continues to slip, as a slice of the work has been awarded to rival outsourcer IBM.
IBM will take over responsibility for generic services delivered across the mining giant including email, network, mainframe, server and desktop computer support.
The services will be delivered in line with BHP Billiton's new operating model and information management strategy, finalised earlier this year as part of a broader technology restructure.
The enterprise and corporate infrastructure services outsourcing contract runs for five years and has been valued at $100 million a year.
BHP Billiton spokeswoman Emma Meade declined to comment on the figure.
IBM was chosen by BHP Billiton to participate in market testing for the work, carried out over the past couple of weeks.
It is now working with CSC to transfer the responsibilities before the contract expires in 2009.
IBM recently won a five-year deal to build out and manage BHP Billiton's SAP data centre. It is understood Hewlett-Packard was previously responsible for that.
Ms Meade said BHP Billiton still had not chosen an outsourcer to provide services to each of the businesses' customer sector groups, which make up the lion's share of CSC's existing $700 million outsourcing contract.
"CSC continues to support BHP Billiton businesses around the world," Ms Meade said.
"We will continue to work closely with CSC during the transition to IBM."
In June, CSC was beaten by systems integrator Accenture for the SAP support component of its massive outsourcing contract to manage its existing SAP systems, GSAP and MSAP, as well as its new platform, dubbed 1SAP. Accenture is building 1SAP, an SAP-based business software system that will be used across the business globally.
BHP Billiton had previously earmarked mid-August as the signing date for the SAP support contract, but Ms Meade said negotiations were continuing.
Media reports have valued the deal at up to $50 million annually.