Capgemini cosies up to Microsoft

Ten year-old alliance extended.

Capgemini Group and Microsoft have announced plans to extend their existing alliance with a revamped agreement that expands the role of IT services provider Sogeti Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Capgemini.

Under the revised agreement, Capgemini and Microsoft will invest in joint marketing and demand-generation initiatives targeting clients in a wide range of industries worldwide.

The deal also aims to accelerate the development of differentiated offerings through professional services from Capgemini and Sogeti.

"As the marketplace includes more customers focused on service oriented architecture, it is important for Capgemini to meet the demands of emerging enterprise clients," said Don Jones, vice president and global alliance executive at Capgemini.

"New complementary solutions from Microsoft enhance our offering but cannot be implemented without collaboration between Microsoft and the enterprise."

The alliance will focus on expanding its portfolio of cross-industry offerings in the areas of security, compliance, mobility, server consolidation, migration of infrastructure and applications to the Windows platform, .Net Web services, enterprise application integration and outsourcing.

Capgemini builds outsourcing offerings using Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Systems Management Server, Microsoft Operations Manager and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server.