IBM gets Lloyds TSB contract

It seems like the season of big contracts. Dell recently bagged a biggie from Philips and now IBM gains one from the Britain’s retail bank, Lloyds TSB. IBM would be providing networking and Voice over IP (VoIP) services.

The contract is worth USD 500 millions and Lloyds TSB would be getting a converged network capable of carrying voice, video, and data content. They would also receive 70,000 Voice over Internet Protocol phones from Cisco as part of the deal.

It would help the bank replace its older network running on traditional technologies, which costed almost 4 times more. It should take around 20 months for IBM to setup a network between the branches of the bank providing the required bandwidth.

The bank is hopeful of using the network efficiently and for more purposes than the older one could handle. The contract would also take inputs from companies like Vanco (network management and integration expertise) and Vtesse Networks (virtual private network).