Unilever, which employs some 206,000 people worldwide, said yesterday it has a memorandum of understanding with HP to outsource its data center operations, server and database management, and application hosting for operations in the Americas as well as in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Turkey. The outsourcing deal is contingent on a final agreement between the two companies expected to be in place later this year.

In a statement, Unilever CIO Neil Cameron said, "This potential agreement would be a natural extension of our current relationship. The intention between both parties is to leverage HP's scale, expertise and industry leadership to ensure Unilever has access to world-class technology at substantially lower costs."

Unilever last year announced an agreement with Accenture Ltd. to manage part of its European IT operations. In late 2005, IBM said it signed a five-year agreement with Unilever to manage the procurement of many of the products and services that are used by Unilever North America. The U.S. headquarters of Unilever is in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

Officials at Unilever or HP were not available for additional comment. Unilever makes a wide range of consumer products, including Dove, Hellmann's, Lipton, Q-Tips, Skippy, Slim-Fast and Vaseline.