IBM: German Deal Is Biggest Hardware Sale In Years

The four-year deal calls for Sparkassen Informatik, which provides tech services to the German banking industry, to buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of IBM equipment, including 20 huge mainframe computers that will be used to replace 36 older IBM mainframes.

IBM spokesman Jim Larkin would not elaborate on the value of the contract but said it was the largest hardware deal for the company since at least 2000 and one of the biggest of the past 10 years.

Josh Krischer, a Gartner research director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, agreed that the deal was unusual because big hardware purchases are generally stretched out over a longer period.

He estimated that the mainframes alone would cost Sparkassen Informatik 80 million euros, or about $100 million.

A Sparkassen Informatik representative did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

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