Equifax Inc, the Atlanta, Georgia-based business information and transaction processing group has extended its UK outsourcing contract with IBM Global Services to cover a wider scope in a follow up to its $900m July announcement (CI No 3,451). The new UK extension is for a ten year, $228m contract starting on 1 January 1999 and includes an additional $94m to the $134m included into the US announcement in July. The contract is also extended to 2008 from the original one, signed in 1992, and renewed again in 1996, due to finish in 2006. The scope of work to be outsourced to IBM GS has been increased in terms of hardware and consultancy. The original facilities management contract for Equifax UK’s mainframes, mid-ranges and desktops have been reorganized with this announcement. IBM GS will provide consultants to help Equifax re-engineer its systems applications to the internet and develop its e-commerce strategy. This is not directly related to the June announcement that both companies will be working together to develop a digital certificate authentication service (CI No 3,427), which is a US initiative, although that is likely to start in the UK in 1999, according to David Lees, IBM GS’s Project Executive. IBM GS will take sole responsibility for the mainframe section and incorporate a further 59 Equifax staff to provide 100 full-time employee equivalents. IBM GS’s main outsourcing center is at Warwick and part of the team will also be based at Equifax’s center in Bradford. There will also be PC technical support staff at the further eight or nine Equifax sites. IBM GS will take over the whole of Equifax’s mid-range systems, which are usually Sun, IBM, Sequent and HP Unix boxes, and will be responsible for integrating any future UK acquisitions into it. IBM GS has been running a IBM PC lease refresh system since 1996 and will be responsible for more of the legacy PCs. IBM GS will provide the latest technology to Equifax, and will install the latest CMOS process, the G5, and IBM tape robot, for example. Equifax had UK revenues of 100m pounds in 1997, up from 10m pounds in 1992.
