Ericsson has signed a five-year IT outsourcing contract with IBM including application maintenance and development for Ericsson. The contract will manage the delivey of IT services to approximately 70,000 end-users and is an extension of an existing contract with IBM which ends this Autumn.

 Carl-Magnus Månsson, CIO and Head of Group IT at Ericsson, says: "We gain significant benefits by outsourcing our IT operations. It helps lower overall IT spending, reduces total cost of ownership and makes our IS/IT structure more efficient. It also ensures we are flexible and able to adapt to changing IT demands. Our supplier has clearly demonstrated it is the best-in-class provider and we are pleased to enter this long-term partnership."

The responsibility for Ericsson's internal, global, corporate voice and data network is not included in the outsourcing contract. This will be managed by Ericsson's business unit Global Services, who will also handle delivery of some business-critical applications and infrastructure services from its own Global Service Delivery Center.

Source:cellular-news