British Petroleum Plc has awarded a five-year worldwide IT outsourcing contact understood to be worth almost $500m to Electronic Data Systems Corp. The Plano, Texas company will offer support for BP’s Common Operating Environment covering more than 13,000 desktops in the UK and the arrangements will spread to BP’s overseas offices in the next two years. As BP is currently involved in a $50bn take-over of Amoco, the deal will ultimately extend to the Chicago-based company though no announcement will be made until the deal is completed. EDS won the contract against fierce competition from leading worldwide services companies. BP currently used around 40 suppliers and has been looking to standardize its support. The deal does not affect the crucial decision to be taken when the Amoco merger is completed of whether the combined group will use Oracle software, installed at BP or that from SAP AG in use at Amoco (CI No 3,273). EDS said that BP will remain responsible for overall IT architecture and strategy and will encourage EDS to present proposals that improve BP’s business processes.
