IBM, CSC at edge over Baycorp contract

22.11.2005
Looking to streamline operations and consolidate infrastructure, data management and analytics solutions provider Baycorp Advantage will oust either IBM or CSC as a tier-1 outsourcing partner on its upwards of A$5 million (US$3.7 million) a year services project.

Baycorp Advantage chief information officer, Andrew Carline, said the company began its IT transformation project, dubbed the Baycorp Business (Change) Blueprint, or "B Cubed", in May with the anticipation of spending A$24 million, including capital.

Carline joined Baycorp in July last year and was hired to deliver the technology component of the transformation the business was planning. "We want to [widen] our traditional credit offerings to a broader base of information services," Carline said.

With an IT shop of 120 people in Australia and New Zealand, Baycorp does application development, desktop support, and network support in-house with CSC used to run the mainframe, and IBM hosting a backup data center for disaster recovery.

Baycorp's infrastructure is a "mix of mainframe and pSeries" systems, but there is also an in-house iSeries application for its New Zealand operations. In the last two years the company also built a commercial bureau, B2baydirect.com, on the pSeries with Java, WebSphere and DB2.

"Our biggest issue is the diverse technology across geographies [which is] a cost imperative," he said. "If we can operate existing platforms more efficiently, we can invest in transforming and growing the platform."