IBM’s 10-year Agreement With Dutch Bank
Though IBM have been working with Dutch bank ABN AMRO for some years now, they have just announced a much larger endeavor. IBM will migrate ABN AMRO’s servers, storage hardware and other technology into a fully managed, private, unified hybrid cloud installation. These services will cover mainframe computers, servers, storage and end-user computing as well as a help desk and other technical and application support.
ABN AMRO is based in the Netherlands and serves retail, private and corporate banking customers. Piet Bil, IBM’s managing director for ABN AMRO said, “With the transformation of ABN AMRO and the strategic shift we see in the Industry, we will enable ABN AMRO in accelerating time to market, address and improve customer service. With this agreement we will further speed-up the transformation of ABN AMRO enabling the latest technology and services. Through our continued partnership, ABN AMRO will be able to evolve its IT infrastructure with new capabilities that leverage IBM’s investments in cloud, as well as analytics and security.”
This follows a series of strong strides within the cloud market for technology giant IBM. Late last month they announced the launch of their new mobile analytics service hosted in their IBM cloud. Additionally, in the same month, IBM started a new cloud security division called the IBM Dynamic Cloud Security Portfolio, to combat cloud security issues for enterprises.
On an international scale IBM has also taken some impressive steps recently including a 7 year outsourcing deal from German airline Lufthansa worth around $1.25 Billion. In this, IBM will manage the airline’s IT infrastructure services division and staff. Simone Menne, CFO at Deutsche Lufthansa is quoted as saying, “Together with IBM, we will have access to the latest IT technologies not only to lower our IT cost but also to continue digitalizing our business processes in order to increase efficiency and customer focus.”
Other notable successes include: Dow Chemicals water solution business unit utilizing IBM to run a mobile app; Delhaize America a grocery giant using IBM’s cloud analytics services to track customer buying patterns, and IBM’s recent partnership with Tencent to Deliver SaaS to SMEs in China.
