EDS Lands IT Outsourcing Deal With French Bank

EDS, which last week posted a quarterly loss due in part to cost overruns from a military contract, received some good news Monday with the signing of a six-year, comprehensive IT outsourcing deal with French bank Banque Hervet. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Under the deal, EDS will provide Banque Hervet with network, desktop, and server support, as well as application management from a new banking operations center that EDS is building in Bourges. EDS says the center will serve as base from which it will target other companies in the French banking industry, which is expected to grow 12% annually through 2005, according to data provided by EDS.

Delays and cost overruns associated with the build-out of a massive intranet for the Navy and the Marine Corps helped push EDS to a loss of $126 million for its first quarter, ended March 31. At the same time, the computer-services firm said last week, it couldn't provide revenue or earnings estimates for the second half of this year due to the murky economic picture.