IBM brings home the bacon with $1bn Danish deals

IBM has bolstered its presence in Scandinavia and beyond with two major IT services contracts and acquisitions involving Danish companies.

IBM will provide AP Moller-Maersk, an international, Copenhagen-based container shipping company, with IT services such as infrastructure implementation, management consulting and application development. IBM already runs an SAP finance project for the shipping firm.

Danske Bank, also based in Copenhagen, will look to IBM to manage its new IT infrastructure - including servers, storage, security and technical programme management - with the goal of improving service levels and flexibility.

The two contracts are worth over $1bn.

IBM will also acquire Maersk Data, an IT consultancy owned by AP Moller-Maersk with expertise in the transportation, healthcare and agriculture industries, and DMData, an IT services company created by the merger of the IT operations of Maersk Data and Danske Bank. Terms of the acquisitions were not released.

Recent contract wins for IBM include a £15m deal with the UK government for databases to track and screen travellers entering and leaving the country as well as a $180m agreement to run Singapore Airlines' IT operations.

IBM Global Services is the top IT services company in increasingly competitive Western European market, according to recent research from analyst house IDC.