Continuing its assault on the European IT outsourcing market, IBM Corp. has signed agreements to buy two Danish IT services companies and another to provide IT services to one of the country’s largest banks.
IBM said Tuesday it will acquire Maersk Data AS, the IT services subsidiary of A.P. Moller-Maersk AS in Copenhagen, and DMdata AS, an IT services company owned jointly by Maersk Data, Danske Bank AS and WW-Data AS.
The Armonk, New York, IT manufacturer and services company said it also signed a major IT services agreement with Danske Bank.
The companies provided no financial details.
The A.P. Moller-Maersk Group owns one of the world’s largest shipping fleets. IBM plans to use the expertise of the Group’s Maersk Data unit to establish a global transportation and logistics competence center, the companies said in a joint statement. The move is consistent with IBM’s stated growth strategy in the IT services sector and with its goal of offering customers globally a range of services based on deep industry insight, according to the statement.
DMdata was formed seven years ago from the merged IT operations of Maersk Data and Danske Bank. The unit is specialized in managing complex IT infrastructures.
In addition to selling its 45 per cent stake in DMdata, Danske Bank selected IBM to manage its worldwide IT infrastructure under a 10-year outsourcing contract. The on-demand-services agreement covers servers, storage, security management and disaster recovery.