Dallas, Texas 07/10/2015 (Financialstrend) – CEO, Ginni Rometty, push to transform International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) into new fast-growing markets received a much-needed boost after the company inked a $180 million cloud deal with Columbia Pipeline Group. The deal involves IBM upgrading the energy company’s infrastructure and internal employee support operations for the next five years.
Pipeline of Service Deals
The latest agreement comes on the heels of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) inking a $1.25 billion outsourcing deal with Deutsche Lufthansa AG and ABN AMRO last year. The deals are a major boost for big blue which continues to struggle with a decline in demand for its service. The company’s consultancy business has been the hard hit having seen its revenue dip by 8% as professional services dipped by 7%.
Columbia Pipeline Group is aggressively expanding its operations to serve new, and existing companies having separated its natural gas pipeline and storage business from its parent company NiSource Inc.
IBM Responsibilities
International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) is to help in the moving of business applications from an aging infrastructure that CPG gained from its spinoff from its parent company. As part of the agreement, IBM is to separate Columbia Pipeline Group’s networks from NiSource and manage CPG’s IT environment over the span of the agreement.
The company is also to make available its QRadar Security Intelligence Platform expected to provide a unified architecture for integrating security information. Five years is the amount of time that International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) has, to move the sheer amount of data. The data will have to be located, checked against the necessary requirements before being moved.
Alliance with big hitters in the tech space has been International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM)’s big play in the recent past as it moves to shun its reliance on the hardware business. That has turned sour in terms of returns.
