Stories about: Electronic Data Systems

When structuring IT transactions, CIOs and vendors frequently focus more on the positive aspects of the relationship-those areas that will help both parties achieve their business objectives-and less on what would happen if the relationship fails to meet those objectives. At the beginning of a relationship, scenarios such as the supplier going out of business or failing to perform, or your company deciding to change direction, seem so unlikely that many organizations fail to plan for them. However, economic volatility coupled with recent high-profile cases are forcing CIOs and vendors to focus more on protecting themselves through their contracts.

Hewlett-Packard Co. today said it is cutting 9,000 jobs, but also plans to hire 6,000 new workers as part of shift to highly automated data centers that rely less on people with hands-on IT skills and more on those with sales and delivery expertise.

The apparent turn in the U.S. economy may have put the brakes on the IT job loss freefall, according to some new data.

MphasiS, the Indian services subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard (HP), said on Wednesday that it reached a definitive agreement to acquire AIG Systems Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (AIGSS), the IT services arm in India of insurer American International Group (AIG).

Telstra has poured $1.2 billion to renew its technology support and services contracts with IBM and Electronic Data Systems to 2014.

Every year, the Improbable Research organization hands out Ig Nobel prizes to research projects that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."

Gas tops US$4 per gallon. Crude is trading at all-time highs-above US$140 a barrel. And oil and gas companies are booking fat profits. In May, Exxon Mobil reported US$10.9 billion in profits for its latest quarter, just short of its record-breaking US$11.7 billion the quarter before.

When Darius Jackson became ING's head of IT infrastructure support and service delivery in January 2005, his job was to clean up a mess. two years earlier, the financial services company had outsourced its IT infrastructure (hardware, software, help desk and so on) to a major service provider in a seven-year, $US600 million deal. But now the business leaders of the company are worried that they aren't getting the value they want out of the relationship.

Reliable, yet inflexible legacy systems were partly to blame for the glitch in US Airways Group's self-serve kiosk system> that led to long lines and delayed flights earlier this month, according to an e-mail sent to the airline's frequent fliers by a company executive.

The former CIO at Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Delta Air Lines sees a bright 2007, where CIOs and CXOs fuse together to create 21st-century companies.