HP nabs $400m UK energy co deal

HP’s services arm has inked a seven year US$400 million outsourcing deal with British energy giant, Centrica plc, owner of British Gas.

The deal will put Centrica on the path to a “utility-based” private cloud, according to HP. Services will be delivered via two of HP’s UK datacentres, with back-end support provided by its offshore operations in India, Malaysia and the Philippines.

“Centrica is striving to improve our ability to respond to market changes to supply gas and electricity to homes and businesses more efficiently,” said Dave Bickerton, Centrica's group chief information officer. 

HP will replace a key component of a recently trimmed ten year contract with Deutsche Telekom’s IT outsourcing arm, T-Systems.

Centrica had signed T-Systems in 2007 to support its data centre, desktop and SAP systems, which saw T-Systems acquire two data centres to support its client and absorb 230 of Centrica’s staff.

However, last December Centrica broke up the T-Systems deal, awarding desktop services to Fujitsu and datacentres to HP, according to Computer Weekly.

Centrica retained T-Systems for its British Gas SAP billing system, which is at the centre of an ongoing legal dispute between the customer and Accenture, according to The Register.