The two companies had signed the marquee deals in the late 1990s. One deal covered components, mainly flat panel displays and hard drives, and was tipped to be worth $16bn over seven years. The other covered maintenance services, and was expected to hit $6bn over seven years.
This week, reports said that Dell had effectively declared the contracts over, saying that IBM was no longer making the components covered under the deal, and that IBM services were only offered on request and the value of the services deal was unlikely to reach the levels earlier envisaged. ComputerWire reported back in September 2002 that Dell had terminated the relationship with IBM.
This week an IBM spokesman said that it was continuing to service customers with Dell. The spokesman confirmed that with the spinning off of the components operations covered by the deal, that was effectively over. The winding down of the two relationships would have no material impact on IBM, the spokesman said.
Providing maintenance services hardly fits with IBM’s current ambitions for the services market. With its purchase of PwC Consulting last year it is gunning for the high end of the market.
At the same time, Dell’s ambitions in the services market may not have endeared it to Big Blue. The company has made no secret of its plans to acquire services operations, although it has yet to announce any big buys. Dell has lost partners in other markets after deciding to push ahead and launch competing products under its own brand.
Dell was unavailable for comment.
Source: Computerwire
