US Marines send for the Inland Revenue
Skills developed by EDS in running the Inland Revenue's computer systems will be used to improve the IT systems of the US Marine Corps, which EDS took over in a $6.9bn contact in late 2000.
The Marine Corps contract is the largest ever federal IT contract, covering 300 bases throughout the US, and as far away as Iceland, Guam, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
EDS strategy director David Fisher revealed the unlikely arrangement to VNU News Net: ‘You expect the Marines to come over the hill but it’s the other way round this time.’
Fisher said the areas where the Inland Revenue had particular expertise included programme management, ‘taking diverse systems and putting them under one umbrella,’ and rolling out large numbers of PCs.
Fisher said that in turn the skills developed on running the Marine Corps contract could come in handy back in the UK, because the Ministry of Defence is also looking at outsourcing many of its systems next year: ‘One of the things we can built on with the Marine contract is that we hope to leverage it at the MoD,’ he said.