Industry News

IBM Signs EURO 1.5 Billion Contract with ABN AMRO to Manage Infrastructure Services

Representatives of IBM announced that the company has signed a global contract with Dutch global bank ABN AMRO to implement an on-demand IT infrastructure that will enable the bank to more rapidly roll out additional services while significantly reducing IT costs. The contract, worth about EURO 1.5 billion (US$1.9 billion) over 5 years, supports ABN AMRO operations worldwide and represents the most extensive rollout of IBM's data center automation technology, called Universal Management Infrastructure.

As part of the contract, IBM will establish an Innovation Center to develop highly advanced IT services to support new financial products.

IBM will support ABN AMRO desktop PCs as well as associated printers and PDAs, freeing the bank from maintaining and updating these systems. The end users will be supported by IBM's global help desk, providing a single point of contact for bank employees.

Under the contract, IBM will:

• Manage core data centers for the bank's Strategic Business Units, including Commercial and Consumer Clients, Private Clients, Asset Management, and New Growth Markets. Computing platforms include IBM mainframes; IBM, HP and Sun Microsystems UNIX servers; and IBM iSeries servers. ABN AMRO's infrastructure also includes EMC and IBM storage devices.
• Provide application development services.

The bank's systems are located in three main data centers in Amsterdam, Chicago and Sao Paolo, as well as some smaller centers.

Infrastructure management will be standardized globally using IBM'S Universal Management Infrastructure, an automation technology designed to provide ABN AMRO with benefits including:

• Resources on demand - processing power, storage capacity, and networking bandwidth dialed up or down as needs and volumes dictate.
• Variable infrastructure pricing - via a sophisticated delivery system that allows ABN AMRO to pay only for computing power it uses.

The news builds on a number of IT infrastructure management services that IBM is already delivering to ABN AMRO in France and Hong Kong.

The contract is pending certain regulatory and other approvals.

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General Dynamics Awarded $15.2 Million Increment for Abrams Integrated Management Materials

The U.S. Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command has awarded General Dynamics Land Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), a US$15.2 million increment of a $62.1 million contract for the materials associated with the production of 92 Abrams Integrated Management (AIM) tanks.  Initial funding of $31.3 million was awarded in April and a second award of $15.6 million occurred in July under the contract.

With award of the $15.6 million increment on July 28, the Army increased the total tank material sets purchased under the contract to 92 sets, 17 more than the original estimate of 75. 

AIM is a joint effort to refurbish M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks involving the U.S. Army Project Manager for Combat Systems; the TACOM Life Cycle Management Command; the Anniston Army Depot, Anniston, Ala.; and General Dynamics Land Systems.  Under the AIM program, M1A1 Abrams tanks are completely disassembled and overhauled to a like-new condition.  Refurbished AIM tanks incur lower operational and support costs and report higher operational readiness rates.

Work will be performed in Lima, Ohio, and Eynon, Pa., by existing General Dynamics employees.  The  AIM tanks are scheduled for delivery to U.S. Army units between July 2006 and July 2007.

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Raytheon Company Names Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II Team

Raytheon Company has named its partners for the upcoming Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) contract competition this fall.

Raytheon will partner with Aerojet, Sacramento, Calif.; Goodrich, Vergennes, Vt., and EFW, Ft. Worth, Texas, to offer a proven low-risk, cost- effective, robust solution with precision lethality and operational flexibility for aviation systems for the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and allied forces.

The Raytheon Missile Systems-lead team maximizes the strengths of guided missile technology, laser seeker technology, low-cost actuation systems and extensive rocket motor experience to ensure low risk, rapid integration of proven technologies. APKWS II is a modular design using common components thus reducing cost and resources, saving time and lowering risk.

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Microsoft Completes Acquisition of FrontBridge Technologies

Representatives ofMicrosoft Corp. have announced the company has completed the acquisition of FrontBridge Technologies Inc., a leading provider of managed services that help address corporate e-mail compliance, security and availability requirements.

Originally announced July 20, the acquisition of FrontBridge allows Microsoft to deliver services for enforcing compliance through archiving, ensuring e-mail availability in the case of a disaster, and improving protection of employee inboxes from viruses and spam. FrontBridge, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, will continue to offer managed messaging services for multiple e-mail platforms such as Microsoft ® Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and other SMTP-compliant servers currently supported by FrontBridge.

FrontBridge managed messaging services provide value to customers by requiring no upfront capital investment, minimizing IT management overhead, and enabling companies to concentrate their IT resources on areas that most directly impact their business, such as driving innovation, building organizational efficiencies, and increasing customer satisfaction.

With the close of this acquisition, Microsoft begins the process of integrating FrontBridge into the Exchange Server Group.

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Lockheed Martin Awarded Electronic Architecture Technology Demonstrator Program

Atkins Defense and the Ministry of Defense (MOD) announced the award to Lockheed Martin U.K. for the design, integration and demonstration of the Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) Electronic Architecture (EA) Technology Demonstrator Programme (TDP).  Delivery is planned for the end of 2006.

Key objectives of this contract are risk reduction, demonstration of the candidate architecture and validation of the requirement in preparation for the Demonstration and Manufacture Phase of the program. 

The FRES program will provide U.K. Land Forces with the capability to conduct rapid intervention, war fighting and other operations through a network enabled family of medium weight platforms designed for rapid world-wide deployment and allowing supremacy in battle space awareness , command and control, precision engagement, survivability, mobility and lethality.

The Lockheed Martin solution will look at how FRES could be integrated within the MOD's network enabled communications system providing enhanced Command and Control, Communications and Intelligence, local situational awareness, target acquisition and precision engagement, survivability and mobility.  The Electronic Architecture will integrate with the BOWMAN communications system and the Bowman Combat Infrastructure and Platform Battlefield Information Systems Application (BCIP) program, providing seamless communications with all combat, combat support and combat service support systems.   A sophisticated Health & Usage Monitoring System (HUMS) will be a key element to reduce the logistical footprint, increase availability and ensure that the whole life cost for the FRES system is tightly controlled.

The FRES EA TDP effort, led by Lockheed Martin is supported by substantial contributions from U.K. companies including Ultra Electronics, Smiths Aerospace, SciSys, PA Consulting and Cranfield University (Team ISIS).  Lockheed Martin was one of two companies downselected for the Electronic Architecture TDP effort, which will span a period of approximately 18 months.