A Deal In Cement

IBM is partnering with global building materials company, CEMEX, to deliver business process and information technology services over a 10-year period.

CEMEX provides high-quality products and reliable service to customers and communities in more than 50 countries throughout the world.

CEMEX has a rich history of improving the well-being of those it serves through its efforts to pursue innovative industry solutions and efficiency advancements and to promote a sustainable future.

This agreement is expected to generate CEMEX savings of close to US$1 billion during the life of the contract. Additionally, it will improve the quality of the services provided to CEMEX; enhance business agility and scalability; maximize internal efficiencies; and allow the company to better serve its customers.

The 10-year services contract awarded to IBM is worth just over US$1 billion, and will include: finance and accounting, and human resource back-office services, as well as IT infrastructure, application development and maintenance services.

IBM currently delivers global scale, talent and technology based on business expertise and a global network of more than 70 Service Delivery Centers and more than 400 Data Centers, in 170 countries covering more than 40 languages.

To learn more about CEMEX, go here, and here to learn more about IBM’s services capabilities.

IBM and NFL

My Dallas Cowboys looked pretty shaky there in Kansas City yesterday. All I can say is God Bless the emergence of Miles Austin!

I had to watch the game on my Time Warner DVR in fast forward mode, because I was too firmly ensconced in my viewing of the President’s Cup to watch the game live (just so you know how my sports priorities ranked yesterday).

When I did finally turn on the Cowboys/Chiefs game, I thought I’d gone into another universe when I saw the Chief’s “Dallas Texans” uniform.

Huh?

I was a very wee lad when the Dallas Texans were sold off and the team moved to Kansas City in 1962 to become the Kansas City Chiefs (and the very same year the Dallas Cowboys franchise was started), something I had to go hunt down and learn via Wikipedia.

You learn something new every day!

On the topic of football, earlier today IBM announced a renewed marketing and services partnership with the NFL.

IBM has been a sponsor since 2003, and with this new agreement, IBM will continue to provide consulting expertise and IT solutions to the NFL to help them more efficiently manage their IT infrastructure and data storage.

The NFL is working to improve upon its current data center, and so IBM will help to reduce costs and energy consumption as it helps the NFL increase their power and cooling capacity.

Specifically, the first phase of this new agreement will include an initiative to shift the NFL’s IT Shared Services environment to a dynamic infrastructure by delivering a number of operational improvements.

IBM will provide design and construction services for an upgraded data center facility located in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, the services for which will allow the NFL to improve scalability and capacity while reducing their daily operating costs and improving their overall energy efficiency.

“With IBM’s help, our IT infrastructure can become more energy efficient, cost effective and adaptive with how we manage our IT services and data,” said Nancy Galietti, Vice President of Information Technology from the NFL. “IBM understands our needs from a business and IT perspective and we look forward to working together on this journey to deliver a dynamic infrastructure.”

As part of the initiative, the upgraded data center facility will create efficiencies and allow the NFL to take advantage of newer, faster and less expensive technologies. The upgraded facility will:

• Improve resiliency by minimizing single points of failure
• Add the capability to install high density computing and offer more computing power in less space.

IBM Vice President, Client Executive Marketing, Rick Singer said of the agreement, “The NFL is a great partner, and we believe that this initiative will enable their business growth. Our goal is to provide the NFL with opportunities to offer premium services to its business divisions and clients.”

In addition, IBM will deliver a plan to optimize the NFL’s storage environment that can reduce the overall cost of storage hardware through virtualized storage provisioning.

Are you ready for some football?