IBM signs $600M, 7-year IT outsourcing deal with ING

Computerworld - IBM has signed a $600 million, seven-year IT outsourcing contract with ING U.S. Financial Services.
Under the terms of the agreement, IBM will simplify and consolidate ING's IT infrastructure. According to a statement, the new computing infrastructure will rely on IBM's Universal Management Infrastructure (UMI) to allow ING to increase or decrease its computing capacity in real time as needed.
"IBM's On Demand Computing Model will propel ING U.S. Financial Services' IT infrastructure to new levels of performance, efficiency and power," Paul Donovan, CIO of ING U.S. Financial Services, said in the statement. "Together we will be able to constantly improve customer service and provide a solid foundation for important ING business initiatives going forward."
IBM said it will also consolidate ING's mainframe and midrange computer operations, allowing ING to reinvest the money it will save through the outsourcing for new and improved business applications.
To prepare for the implementation of UMI, IBM will streamline ING U.S. Financial Services' IT infrastructure, tools and processes.
ING will standardize on IBM desktop and laptop technologies using emerging self-reliant technologies and minimizing the number of software images to reduce support costs and improve employee productivity, the companies said.
"We're going to be moving ING to an on-demand environment where we're going to build and leverage our UMI technology to streamline their IT infrastructure," said Philip Guido, IBM Global Services' general manager for the financial services sector. "We'll be developing tools, techniques, processes -- leveraging our technology, our innovations, our software to move this infrastructure to one of our centers in Boulder, [Colo.] We'll be doing mainframe, distributed computing, deskside support, help desk, voice and data networks and the resiliency that comes with disaster recovery -- that's a requirement for this industry."

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