Atos lands £90m CRS contract

NEWS Co-operative Retail Services (CRS) has awarded a £90m outsourcing contract to French IT services company, Atos. The agreement will run for seven years and sees 150 IT staff move from CRS to Atos. They will continue to work on mainframe, mid-range and other platforms at two data centres. David Butler, technology strategy manager at CRS, told Silicon News: "Both companies have a common set of cultures, and Atos brings with it a great deal of retail as well as IT experience." The deal is the third largest ever in the UK retail sector, and is among the top five per cent of all data centre outsourcing contracts in terms of value, according to analysts. Butler said other factors that swung the deal for Atos include the French company's track record of preparing for European monetary union and its expertise in smartcard technology.