CSC, IBM Team On Extended Cloud Alliance Around SoftLayer, ServiceMesh Development

CSC has expanded its relationship with IBM to better help its clients navigate the transition to the cloud, with a collection of new offerings and integrations around ServiceMesh, SoftLayer and Bluemix for as-a-Service solutions, the companies said Friday.

The new offerings bring IBM solutions around SoftLayer Infrastructure-as-a-Service and BlueMix to CSC customers, including integrating them with the CSC ServiceMesh Agility Platform. The agreement will bring ServiceMesh Agility Platform to the IBM Cloud Marketplace.

The extended alliance will work to unite the CSC vision of a "Service-Enabled Enterprise" with IBM's "as-a-service" strategy, CSC said. IBM and CSC will work together on marketing, sales and consulting efforts around app development and key technologies such as big data, cloud, mobility and security.

[Related: CSC Updates Big Data Platform-as-a-Service]

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The announcement is significant from a strategic perspective for CSC as it continues to build partnerships with vendors it sees as technology leaders, CSC executives said. This has included companies such as HCL, Microsoft, Amazon, SAP and AT&T in the past. The announcement adds IBM to that list of key technology partners for the solution provider, they said.

"Today's announcement represents the latest in a series of such alliances aimed at differentiating CSC as a leader in the next-generation IT services and solutions," CSC said. "Together with key partners like IBM, we help businesses modernize applications and migrate them to the cloud to achieve the innovation, agility, value, security and cost-savings that come with operating in a next-gen environment."

CSC said the IBM alliance will help the company grab a piece of Gartner's predicted $210 billion market for application services in 2014 and help continue to pivot the solution provider around as-a-Service solutions. With a focus on solutions for mobile, big data and analytics and cloud, CSC executives said the alliance will help the company continue to modernize client applications across a variety of cloud platforms.

"As the IT stack virtualizes and enterprise customers increasingly seek hybrid-cloud-based, on-demand consumption models, CSC continues to assemble the right strategic partners, assets and as-a-service offerings to help them transform operations. Expanding our alliance with IBM is another building block in our strategy to lead in next-generation IT solutions by helping clients achieve the vision of a service-enabled enterprise," CSC executives said in a prepared statement. "As our clients change the way they buy and consume IT services, we have assembled the assets and as-a-service offerings to lead in a more open, innovative and competitive ecosystem."

The IBM, CSC announcement ties into the CSC cloud strategy to build a cloud-agnostic platform for clients, following the solution provider's acquisition of ServiceMesh. The ServiceMesh Agility Platform, CSC's cloud management platform, will be offered as part of the IBM Cloud Marketplace under the agreement for the expanded relationship and CSC could stand to benefit from offering IBM Softlayer.

While the company has had a longstanding relationship with IBM, CSC said that the most recent expansion aligns the two company's around the solution provider's vision for the future of the application ecosystem.

"The expanded alliance further enables our clients to realize greater operational agility from IT assets and services and new opportunities to innovate when leveraging the cloud in their technology platforms," CSC said.

CSC said the company will continue to make investments moving forward in what it called next-generation service offerings, which includes upgrading the sales force, more contract bids, cloud solutions and integrating the ServiceMesh Agility Platform with more cloud providers.

PUBLISHED AUG. 11, 2014