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By Will Sturgeon, 30 May 2003 11:48

NEWS BT has signed a deal with Parity that will see almost 800 staff at the IT recruitment and services company able to access their desktop apps from anywhere with a connection to the internet. The arrangement is part of a £22m outsourcing deal between the two companies. Parity staff across Europe now get access to email, Microsoft Office applications and other data relating to in-house systems. The deal is based on the BT Agile Office offering, developed in conjunction with Microsoft. The idea is to lower the number of PCs per employee, simplify management and reduce overall IT spend. Richard Bacon, Parity MD, told silicon.com: "Our people can be at their desks, in a hotel or with a client but before we had no continuity. Now they can have the same files and applications wherever they are." BT Agile Office requires end users to dial-in to a central 'data farm' - in this instance located in the UK - meaning no data has to be stored on client devices. Bacon denied taking the BT route meant having to use Microsoft software. Microsoft is one of BT's major partners. "That was not a prerequisite of the deal," Bacon said. Paul Roche, general manager of ebusiness at BT Global Services, said in a statement: "Gartner recently estimated that this type of solution would deliver cost savings of between 10 and 30 per cent, a strong business benefit that organisations cannot afford to ignore." As part of the larger deal between the two companies BT will look after Parity's European IT and telecoms infrastructure while Parity has been employed to take over the running of contractors working as technical consultants for BT across mainland Europe.