The General Motors contract will probably be the most significant deal of 2006. However, the year is already seeing many new IT-services contract signings, some of which are worthy of mention.

ComputerWire’s IT Services Contracts Database logged deals with a combined value of $9.1 billion, driven by some major awards in the U.S. government and defense sectors.

The largest deal of January went to Perot Systems Corp., which consolidated its position as one of the largest IT-services suppliers to U.S. hospitals with a $1.2 billion, 10-year contract award from Triad Hospitals.

The win was a crucial one for Perot Systems Corp., which is bracing itself for the loss of large chunks of business from two of its largest accounts in the next two years. Swiss financial-services giant UBS, which accounted for 15% of Perot Systems’ third-quarter revenue, is to end its 10-year outsourcing deal with the vendor in January 2007, and Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare is switching from Perot to another supplier for its transaction-processing system in the same year.

Seven of the 10 largest contracts in January were won by smaller IT-services suppliers, highlighting the trend for clients to shop around and engage who they see as best-of-breed suppliers, rather than plumping for the high-profile players. Northrop Grumman, a major U.S. defense-sector contractor was the surprising choice for the County of San Diego, which selected the vendor to manage a number of suppliers including BearingPoint and EDS, to provide services including data center and applications management over the next seven years. HCL Technologies scored another notable strike for India’s community of software-services exporters by bagging a five-year deal with U.K.-based electronics retail group DSG International Plc. The size of the contract was not disclosed, but is widely approximated at $300 million, ranking it as one of the largest overseas wins by an Indian technology-services firm to date. Unisys got a welcome piece of good news by receiving a $750 million bridge extension to a contract with the U.S. Transportation Authority, despite being investigated for overcharging on its original deal to build and manage a new IT security and network infrastructure across the country’s commercial airports.

While there were other wins for smaller CGI Group and Mantech International, the sector’s largest player — IBM Global Services — won three of the ten largest deals announced January. It clinched a $1.1 billion deal with clothing retail giant — The Gap — as well as contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and Portuguese bank, Banco Espirito Santo.

IT-services vendors revealed several major contract terminations in their latest round of quarterly financial results. Both CGI Group and human-resources outsourcer Hewitt Associates revealed that major clients had cancelled significant deals with the suppliers. n

THE TOP TEN IT-SERVICES CONTRACTS IN JANUARY 2006
Rank				Customer				Provider				Project				Region				Value				Duration
																				($ million)				(In years)
	1			Triad Hospitals Inc.				Perot Systems Corp.				Application management, desktop management, infrastructure management				U.S.A.				$	1200				10
	2			The Gap				IBM Global Services				ata-center outsourcing, infrastructure management, maintenance/support				U.S.A.				$	1100				10
	3			TSA				Unisys				Application management, data-center outsourcing, infrastructure management				U.S.A.				$	750				3
	4			County of San Diego				Northrop Grumman				Application management, desktop management, infrastructure management				U.S.A.				$	650				7
	5			Dept. of Defense				IBM Global Services				Application development and support, application management				U.S.A.				$	370				10
	6			DSG Intl. Plc				HCL				Application development and support, offshore contracting				U.S.A.				$	335				5
	7			Commonwealth of Virginia				CGI Group Inc.				Application management, infrastructure management, maintenance/support				U.S.A.				$	300				7
	8			U.S. Air Force				ManTech Intl.				Infrastructure management, maintenance/ support, network management				U.S.A.				$	200				10
	9			Symrise				Atos Origin				Application management, consulting, infrastructure management				Germany				$	183				10
	10			Banco Espirito Santo				IBM Global Services				Application management, business continuity/ disaster recovery, infrastructure management				Portugal				$	181				10
DATAMONITOR’S IT-SERVICES CONTRACT TRACKER LOGS EVERY PUBLICLY DISCLOSED CONSULTING, SYSTEMS INTEGRATION AND OUTSOURCING DEAL, WITH A MINIMUM VALUE OF $1 MILLION