IBM Global Services has extended its outsourcing contract with the UK Dental Practice Board (DPB) by four and a half years, in a deal worth 17m pounds. The extended full scope contract signed in July 1998 will run until December 2002. The original deal, signed in January 1995, was to outsource the DPB’s VME and Unix servers, desktops, software and networks for five years, although the DPB retained ownership of the ICL VME mainframe. Under the new contract IBM has acquired an ICL Trimetra mainframe to replace the 10 year old VME. ICL has been sub-contracted to provide the system as well as ongoing service and maintenance for five years. IBM is staying with an ICL mainframe because the DPB has bespoke, legacy applications and it is cheaper to upgrade than to transfer to the MVS operating system. The Trimetra was installed in August and is operated from IBM’s data center site leased from the DPB in Eastbourne. IBM runs other clients’ hardware from this site and will use the Trimetra to provide ICL-based processing services to other customers.
