ABB, the leading power and automation technology group and IBM have signed a new agreement that will transform ABB's Information Systems (IS) infrastructure across 17 countries in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. IBM will provide server and network management, as well as end user and help desk services for the majority of ABB's IS infrastructure operations.

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Under the new agreement, ABB's businesses will see immediate cost savings. ABB will benefit further from a highly scalable IS infrastructure that provides flexibility for business expansion. Additionally, the new infrastructure solution positions ABB to take advantage of cloud computing in the future to further reduce costs and increase the speed of IS resource provisioning.

The new IS infrastructure agreement will also improve ABB's IS energy efficiency, reducing carbon emissions by 9,000 tons annually - equivalent to taking more than 1,600 cars off the road - through consolidation and virtualization of ABB's servers and storage.

"With the new agreement, ABB will realize considerable savings, while harmonizing and optimizing IS infrastructure," said Haider Rashid, ABB's global Chief Information Officer. "Our partnership with IBM allows us to implement new technologies and processes to build for continued globalization of our business. At the same time, we will be improving energy efficiency."

"This agreement further demonstrates IBM's commitment to deliver to the highest quality services and the most advanced technologies which help our clients to transform their businesses," says IBM Senior Vice President and General Manager for Global Technology Services, Mike Daniels. "IBM's green technologies are helping leading businesses like ABB to become more efficient in their energy consumption, not only in their data centers, but across all of their operations."

  The agreement was signed in December 2009.

  About ABB

ABB is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impacts. The ABB Group of companies operates in more than 100 countries and employees about 120,000 people. For more information, please visit www.abb.com.

  About IBM
  For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/services.




  Media Contacts
  Susan Orozco
  Media Relations
  IBM Switzerland Ltd
  +41 58 333 58 83
  orozco@ch.ibm.com

  Tara Sucato
  IBM Media Relations (U.S.)
  917-472-3701
  tjsucato@us.ibm.com

  ABB Group Media Relations:
  Thomas Schmidt, Wolfram Eberhardt
  (Zurich, Switzerland)
  +41 43 317 6568
  media.relations@ch.abb.com

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact: tjsucato@us.ibm.com

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SOURCE: IBM