Coors Brewing Co. has signed a five-year agreement to outsource its IT infrastructure, “on demand,” to Plano, Tex.-based Electronic Data Systems Corp.
EDS will service Coors’ existing worldwide infrastructure on an as-needed basis, helping the subsidiary of Golden, Colo.-based Adolph Coors Co. avoid upfront capital expenses since it will pay for specific services as they are rendered, according to the announcement.
EDS is expected to provide infrastructure, desktop support and network management services, as well as host Coors’ SAP enterprise application. About 70 Coors employees will move to EDS, according to the statement.
This isn’t the first deal of its kind, said Albert Nekimken, an analyst at Chantilly, Virginia-based Input. He said it’s part of a growing trend, with obvious benefits to the client company, which only pays for what it needs. And despite the potential risk for EDS, there is a benefit for the vendor as well.
“If EDS already has expensive data centers set up, they are only profitable when fully utilized,” he explained. So odd jobs that don’t require much customization can fill the excess space not used by clients with more comprehensive contracts.
The financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed in the announcement.