Optimising IT performance: News stories

On the PGA Tour Web site, hosted by IBM, IBM allows subscribers to watch the movements of their selected player via computer simulation. Using live-feed information gathered from the golf course, IBM recreates plays on something that appears like a video game.

IBM's five-year partnership with Sprint is the largest yet example of business transformation outsourcing (BTO). IBM will assume customer-service duties for Sprint, mainly operation of 29 worldwide customer service centers and deployment of advanced CRM systems.

IBM's supply-chain-services consulting group is guiding the deployment of Halliburton Energy Services' logistics, manufacturing and outsourcing strategy by recommending technologies and processes. IBM also helped Philips Consumer Electronics to analyse its supply chain processes.

In a new five-year contract, IBM intends to improve Sprint's customer service through customer segmentation, call routing, and handle times, IBM will also assume the management of many of Sprint's call centers. Sprint expects to save $550 million over the next three years.

Retailer Target has awarded IBM a 10-year contract to manage the merchant's mainframe IT infrastructure. The agreement establishes a variable, on demand pricing model under which Target will pay only for the IT services it uses.

IBM has assembled several services to help companies implement Grid computing and autonomic computing technologies. With a Grid computing system, which links IT resources, financial services firms run complex investment simulations in just minutes compared to several hours using just a few servers.

IBM has won a Workplace outsourcing contract, which bundles together enterprise desktop services, from Zurich Financial. IBM will manage 65,000 "electronic workplaces." A Zurich spokesperson says the Workplace concept is attractive because employees are not tied to specific workplaces.

IBM is gathering its resources to develop unique solutions to problems in transportation, financial services, manufacturing, and other industries. IBM Global Services has doubled its business consultants to 60,000 experts and has formed close links with the 3,000 researchers at IBM laboratories.