San Sebastian-based Ibermatica SA is offering applications and software maintenance at large companies’ data processing centres. The service, similar to facilities management, aims to stop projects at such centres piling up due to a lack of time and resources. Ibermatica’s diector of industry and services, Alfonso Cartagena, said this service would be a fuller one than that provided by most consultancy companies, and would include support and documentation of applications developed by third parties. The Basque company currently does less than $11m a year in this particular business niche – $5.4m coming from its facilities management centre, plus $2.3m from the public sector and $3.1m from the private sector. As a result of this initiative, the facilities management centre is expected to increase its business by 25%. The new maintenance will involve the exclusive working effort of two or three people, bound to the client by a contract. Once the characteristics and problems surrounding an application have been studied, after a period of time Ibermatica will take responsibility for all maintenance of this application. Drawing a parallel with hardware maintenance, Cartagena told Tribune Informatica, Ours will be a complete multi-system offering, but with software. Traditionally services companies have only involved themselves with applications development, without getting stuck with implementation and training, whereas now the market is demanding the implementation the system as a necessary phase in the project.
