Prepress
Phoenix Signs Infrastructure Services Agreement with EDS, an HP Company
Tuesday 13. January 2009 - EDS, an HP company, and The Phoenix Companies, Inc. today announced an agreement under which EDS will continue managing technology infrastructure and software applications for Phoenix Life Insurance Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary.
The seven-year, $78 million agreement will enable Phoenix to better serve its customers. It replaces a previous agreement from 2004. Phoenixs total investment in business technology with EDS, including the value of the new agreement, will be $129 million from January 2009 through 2015.
“EDS has helped us manage and transform our technology to support our business growth and enhance our insurance services,” said John LaGrasse, executive vice president and chief information officer of The Phoenix Companies. “This new agreement reflects our changed business needs after last years spin-off of Phoenixs asset management business and will lower our annual technology expenses.”
EDS will consolidate and manage Phoenixs midrange server, mainframe and information storage environments, and manage and monitor the voice and data communications network that connects Phoenix employees across the United States.
Additionally, EDS will manage the firms end-user computing environment with workplace services that include desktop, security, service desk, messaging support and on-site services. EDS will deliver each of these services to Phoenix through EDS Regional Support Centers and will use HP ProLiant servers, HP Compaq dc7900 Business Desktop PCs and HP Compaq 6530b and 6530s Notebook PCs.
EDS also will provide web application support and maintenance for Phoenixs Internet and intranet sites.
“We will help Phoenix improve employee productivity, lower costs, enable innovative new insurance services and support continued growth,” said Mark DeBenedictus, vice president of U.S. Financial Services Industry at EDS, an HP company. “As the firms trusted business ally for the past four years, we will continue to leverage our industry expertise and global scale to help Phoenix meet its business goals.”
EDS Agility Alliance partners Microsoft, EMC and Cisco will provide select tools, technologies, software and resources to EDS in support of Phoenix. EDS and its Agility Alliance partners collaborate to design, build and run a globally recognized services platform and develop technology-based services to deliver client results. EDS Agility Alliance partners include Cisco, EMC, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun Microsystems and Xerox.
As a pioneer of technology services for the financial services industry, EDS provides a wide range of outsourced and consulting services – from payments and securities processing to applications development, as well as network, customer relationship management and help desk services – to all sectors of the industry.