Vodafone's new global master outsourcing arrangements with services giants IBM and EDS will barely cause a ripple at the mobile carrier's Australian operations.
That's the message Vodafone's local chief technology officer, Andy Reeves, gave ZDNet Australia by telephone today.
"We've already got a relationship with IBM," he said. "In terms of some of the services that are going to be provided under the new contract, IBM already provide us and have done for about three years."
Late yesterday Vodafone announced it had handed global outsourcing deals to IBM and EDS, with the two services giants to do work for the telco in a range of different countries. The deal covers application development and maintenance services.
Reeves said although the details hadn't been finalised on how the global agreement would affect Australia, it would likely be more of a "re-packaging" of the existing contract than anything else.
"They won't be doing much extra at all," he said of IBM.
Vodafone is working on a billing and customer relationship management project with IBM in Australia, with some of Big Blue's staff housed at Vodafone facilities.
