(SEATTLE) Coffee giant Starbucks has selected Unisys to provide IT services to support the corporation’s aggressive global expansion.
Unisys will simplify the deployment and management of IT infrastructure services used in international Starbucks retail stores, support centres, and manufacturing facilities.
The deal includes the provision of service desk and help desk services; data centre services, network and server monitoring and support; equipment procurement, configuration and maintenance; business continuity and recovery consulting services; and global programme management. The vendor will also provide IT security services for Starbucks North American operations.
“Our Global IT Infrastructure Programme delivers standard services to our international markets in support of Starbucks growth targets,” said Brian Crynes, CIO for Starbucks.
“We chose Unisys based on our confidence in their global service delivery model that supports our growth requirements,” Crynes continued.
The deal is expected to enhance support to the coffee maker as it expands from over 3,600 to 20,000 stores globally.
“We are pleased to have the opportunity to partner with Starbucks to achieve even greater international growth and recognition,” said Randy Hendricks, president of Unisys Global Outsourcing and Infrastructure Services.
“Our companies share an entrepreneurial spirit and a passionate commitment to customer service and innovation. We believe that Unisys’ global IT services expertise will help Starbucks attain its strategic expansion and enhance the service experience for both Starbucks customers and its people,” he added.
Last month the vendor also announced an agreement with the FBI to develop and deploy the Next-Generation Combined DNA Index System (NGCODIS).
The development contract has a two-year base period, a two-year option, and two one-year options exercisable at the sole discretion of the government. The estimated value for the two-year base period is US$11million, but if all option years are exercised, the estimated value to Unisys could be US$50 million.
Unisys’ fiscal third quarter revenues increased 2% to US$1.41 billion from US$1.39 billion a year ago.
AIP goes with EMC
(MELVILLE) The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has deployed EMC’s RecoverPoint continuous remote replication (CRR) and continuous data protection (CDP) solution.
AIP said the software now plays an essential role in protecting AIP’s data, both locally and at a secondary remote data centre, and allows it to achieve rapid data recovery and uninterrupted operations by failing over to its secondary data centre when the primary site is shutdown for maintenance.
AIP’s online services include more than 120 publications from 19 scientific societies.
“When we needed a simple, reliable and cost-effective remote replication solution that could snap into our existing heterogeneous environment, we chose EMC RecoverPoint software,” said James Wonder, director of online technology at AIP.
(LONDON) The corporate banking and financial markets division of Lloyds TSB has got rid of 120 locally attached tape drives and replaced them with a disk-based system from data protection storage systems vendor Data Domain.
Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets has implemented Data Domain restorers and DD Replicator software at its new headquarters location in London, and at its remote contingency site outside the city.
In addition to protecting data for the division’s financial operations, the solution provides mission critical business continuity capabilities for a two hundred position trading floor.
Data Domain said the legacy tape backup system that the corporate markets division’s IT department had been using had, over time, began consuming too much administration effort as the firm grew.
(MADRID) Telefonica de Espana has chosen Sun Microsystems to upgrade and consolidate its multiple Oracle databases.
Telefonica has purchased and deployed two Sun Fire E20K systems as the consolidation platform for more than 20 of the most critical individual databases. The servers will run the vendor’s Solaris 10 operating system and Sun Cluster software.
Sun will also provide a range of consulting and support services to the telecom operator. Telefonica will upgrade to Oracle Real Application Clusters in a Metro Cluster, multi-site deployment.
“In our opinion, Oracle has the best database product in the open world, and Sun has very well suited servers to support the high loads of our databases,” said Jose Luis Conesa, IT production director at Telefonica de Espana, in a statement.
(BEIJING) IBM has teamed up with financial services firm Lehman Brothers to create an investment fund with which to back Chinese companies.
The China Investment Fund will have an initial start-up capital of US$180million, with each company initially providing US$90million.
IBM and Lehman will focus on mid-stage to mature, public or private local companies across a number of industry sectors. IBM and Lehman will also provide management and technology expertise to the companies in which they invest.
China’s GDP was ranked fourth in the world in 2005, and with an economy expected to grow 7.5% per year over the next five years, the country is expected to rank third by 2010.
Lehman said that if the venture proved successful the partnership could be extended to other countries.
Follow us on
