Anglo American outsources IT to BT and HP

Mining company Anglo American is entering into a seven-year, $450m outsourcing deal with the BT HP partnership.

Under the agreement, BT and HP will manage the company's voice services, data centres and end-user IT. They will also create an integrated IT infrastructure across Anglo American's global operations which will bring together the company's various business units onto a common platform. The new infrastructure is estimated to be finished in 18 months to two years.

A spokeswoman for Anglo American told silicon.com: "We want to have a single infrastructure across all of our businesses and we believe that by going with BT and HP we'll be able to achieve that more quickly than if we did that ourselves."

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The spokeswoman said saving money is not the main reason for the deal but admitted that by working with established players such as BT and HP - with their significant buying power in the IT arena - there should be some cost benefits.

Approximately 90 employees from around the world will transfer from Anglo American to BT and HP, although the spokeswoman said the new deal is "not aimed at downsizing" Anglo American's staff in any way.