Barclays Plc’s Computer Operations division has formed Edotech Ltd, a printing services company, with encouragement from IBM UK Ltd. The new company is buying 28 IBM laser printers, all driven by the company’s Advanced Function Printing system. It has a capacity of over 1m sheets per day and runs constantly. It will focus on offering direct mail printing services initially, but will expand into the data presentation market in due course. Barclays Computer Operations was formed 18 months ago (CI No 1,922) with the aim of handling facilities management, contingency planning, processing, project management, technical support and consultancy. Edotech is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barclays Computer Operations, but it has one board member from IBM. The firm will use Barclays’ secure data centre in Gloucester to provide confidential printing, de-duplication, salutation, mailing list manipulation, mail sorting and personalisation. It will also provide forms design and facilities management services. Sales leads will come from both IBM and Barclays sales teams. Bruce Hotter, managing director of Barclays Computer Operations, predicted that IBM’s input would help the company move into the paperless office and into design consultancy. This technology will move towards the presentation of some information not on paper but on people’s workstations, he said, and Bob Hazel, a director of Edotech, confirmed that it would install complete document image processing systems for customers. The company, which predicts non-paper-based presentation in the home in the future, categorises this as a vision, not a plan. Its business comes largely from the Barclays banking group at present, although it hopes to sign two financial services customers in the next two weeks.
