IT-services contracts in July were dominated by major U.S. government programs. The U.S. Army finalized the providers for its delayed $20 billion Information Technology Enterprise Solutions-2 procurement after evaluating protests lodged by a number of losing bidders.

The eight major winning providers are: Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI, CSC, EDS, General Dynamics, IBM, Lockheed Martin and Science Applications. The three small business contractors are: Apptis, STG and QSS.

All these companies will compete for a share of work to support the Army, the Department of Defense and other federal agencies with services, including business process re-engineering, IT and security services, network support, systems operations and maintenance, systems integration and training.

Northrop Grumman has closed its $2 billion IT-infrastructure outsourcing contract with the Commonwealth of Virginia. Northrop has been negotiating the deal since it beat a rival bid from a consortium led by IBM last October, and will now lead a team, including MCI, Booz Allen Hamilton and HP to modernize the Commonwealth’s infrastructure including mainframes, servers, desktops and networks.

Bull, a struggling French server manufacturer, announced a breakthrough IT-services contract win this month with Barnsley Council in the U.K.

The deal is a significant one for Bull, which sold off its international services operation to domestic rival, Steria, in 2002, but is now aiming to derive the majority of its revenue from services by 2008.

Under the terms of the contract, Bull and Barnsley Council will create a joint-venture company that will provide a range of IT-infrastructure services, including helpdesk management and data center management. Some 106 staff who are currently employed in the council’s IT department will transfer to the joint venture as part of the deal.

Xchanging revealed details of a procurement outsourcing contract win with the U.K. arm of National Australia Bank. The procure-to-pay deal covers the management of all the indirect spend of NAB’s subsidiaries, including Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank, and involves 40 staff transferring to the London, U.K.-based supplier, which is majority owned by the investment group, General Atlantic Partners.

Xchanging also told Datamonitor that it is about to announce a major Human Resources (HR) outsourcing deal in the U.K. public sector, which would be its first major HR contract since it formed Xchanging HR Services with defense contractor BAE Systems in 2001.

Indian IT service provider, HCL, continued its recent strong run of contract wins with the announcement of a five-year deal with U.S.-based manufacturing firm, Teradyne. While HCL’s official release valued the deal at $70 million, press reports claimed that the actual revenue could be closer to $125 million.

HCL will provide Teradyne with applications development and support, data center migration, LAN and WAN management and helpdesk services. Around 25 of Teradyne’s staff will be transferred to HCL as part of the deal.