Cadbury Schweppes Plc’s wholly-owned subsidiary ITnet Ltd has won a UKP38m facilities management contract from Westminster City Council’s central computer services division. The deal will last for seven years, saving the council an estimated UKP11m. ITnet will be taking on most of the 90 staff currently employed, although five or six are taking voluntary redundancy. The Birmingham-based company will look after Westminster’s IBM Corp 3090-400J mainframe which supports 4,000 users. It will also manage a MIPS Technologies Inc mid-range Unix box, used for office automation; existing software – mainly custom applications – and will provide user support and applications development services. ITnet snatched the deal from nine other companies, including Birmingham-based Capita Group Plc and ICL Plc’s subsidiary CFM. It claims to be one of the top five facilities management companies in the UK, behind such big names as Hoskyns Group Plc and Sema Group Plc, specialising in applications management and systems integration. Most of its income is generated from IBM, ICL, Digital Equipment Corp and Compagnie des Machines Bull SA mainframes, but it also deals with Unisys Corp and Prime Computer Inc mid-range computers to cater for customers moving to Unix. Main markets are local government, which generated 40% of last year’s UKP31m revenues, and the commercial sector, particularly manufacturing, retail, distribution and financial services. ITnet started life as Cadbury’s management services department, but became a separate subsidiary in 1987.
