CSC said it has signed a definitive agreement to extend its IT outsourcing pact with DuPont. The new contract runs through December 2014. CSC values the seven-year and seven-month extension at $1.6 billion to $2 billion. The ultimate value depends on fluctuations in business volume and future efficiency gains, according to CSC.

CSC's work with DuPont dates to 1997, when the companies signed a 10-year outsourcing contract for CSC to operate DuPont's IT infrastructure and provide applications services in more than 40 countries.

EDS, meanwhile, added four years to its outsourcing arrangement with Caja de Ahorros y Pensiones de Barcelona, a Spanish financial services firm known as "la Caixa."

EDS will manage the bank's IT infrastructure through its Barcelona data center. In addition, EDS will develop banking and insurance software and support bank branches. The contract extension is valued at about $239 million.

EDS has been working with the Spanish bank since 1996.

Compiere Signs Partners

Compiere Inc. on Monday said it has added seven partners to its global partner network, three of which are in North America.

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The new companies include Almas, Compilog, H2-Consulting, Salmon LLC, ProfiTech, vagoIT Consulting GmbH and Alpha Ray. The partners are authorized to provide integration, customization and support services for Compiere's enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management application.

In North America, where Compiere has been working to gain ground, the company signed Salmon, based in Mineola, N.Y., ProfiTech, based in New Jersey, and AlphaRay, based in Ontario.

Compiere also extended its reach in Europe, where the company's open source business applications first attracted interest. Compilog provides implementation services from its base in Paris, while H2-Consulting is headquartered in the Netherlands. Compiere also gained a German partner in vagoIT Consulting.

Singapore has been an active market for Compiere, and the company continued its Asian initiative with the signing of Almas, based in Japan.

Compiere provides its open source business applications free of charge and offers presales consulting, implementation services and support through partners. The partners focus on small and midsized customers.

IBM Looks To Software-as-Service Model

As IBM seeks to expand its ISV roster, the company increasingly turns to vendors following the software-as-service delivery model.

Buell Duncan, general manager of ISV and developer relations at IBM, said the software segment remains fragmented, despite consolidation among large players. Oracle and SAP, he said, represent 15 percent of the $70 billion application software market.

"The rest of the market is driven by new entrants," Duncan said. "Many, if not most of them, are delivering in the new software-as-service environment," he added.

Duncan cited Pay By Touch as an example. IBM hosts the company's biometric payment system.

"Increasingly, this is something that is really exploding in the marketplace," he said.

IBM's role is to provide hosting services through its Global Services operation and through business partners. Avnet Inc. and Mainline Information Systems are among IBM's hosting partners, Duncan said.

Duncan has observed other trends among its newer ISV recruits. The companies often subscribe to the open source model and are backed by venture capital firms. He said of the 4,500 companies that have joined IBM's PartnerWorld Industry Networks program since March 2004, more than 950 arrived via the venture community.

"We've seen pretty dramatic changes in architecture for applications software companies … over the last three years," noted Ann Winblad, the co-founding partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. "The overriding technology change is software as a service." Hummer Winblad's portfolio includes Employease Inc., an IBM partner that offers its human resources applications on a hosted basis. About 45 percent of Hummer Winblad's portfolio companies subscribe to the software-as-service approach.

Ontrack Taps VARs

Ontrack Data Recovery has inked reseller deals with Programmer's Paradise and Revinetix, which will offer the company's mailbox recovery software.

Ontrack's PowerControls software restores individual mailboxes, messages, folders, attachments and other components from existing backup Microsoft Exchange Server database files, according to the company. PowerControls pricing starts at $950 for 100 mailboxes.

Sigaba Inks Three Reseller Deals

Sigaba has signed three East Coast resellers, which will offer the company's secure messaging products to their customers.

The resellers, Versatile Inc., Quest Networks and ComnetCo Inc., will employ Sigaba's technology in outbound content control solutions. The product line includes Secure Email, Secure Statements, Secure IM, and Secure Messaging for Mobile Devices.

Bob Joyce, president of Versatile, characterized Sigaba's products as a way to "add a secure layer on top of our messaging solutions." He said Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requirements generate strong demand for secure messaging.

Steve Wilkinson, who is accustomed to recruiting resellers as Sigaba's channel director, said the latest reseller additions are notable in that they approached the company. "They came to Sigaba after they did an initial evaluation of the players in the market," he said.

Sigaba does about a third of its business through the channel and Wilkinson said he expects to see that portion grow. The company pursues a channel-neutral model, he added.

"There's no downside to pushing business through the channel," Wilkinson said of the company's sales force.

Wilkinson said that the company's resellers tend to pursue a specific vertical market such as financial services or focus on security.

Mazu Bolsters Channel Program

Mazu Networks Inc., a network security products provider, has added SiegeWorks and VANDIS to its roster of channel partners.

SiegeWorks, with headquarters in Livermore, Calif., provides enterprise security services, consulting and integration. VANDIS, based in Nassau County, N.Y., offers a range of security services including security assessment, application security and content filtering.

Mazu Networks' alliances with SiegeWorks and VANDIS will focus on the vendor's Mazu Profiler, a network behavior analysis system.