Morgan Stanley says it expects to save millions of dollars under a new software and services 'on demand' contract with IBM.
The approximately $575 million, five-year contract extension will introduce variable pricing as the financial services firm draws its back-end computing power from a shared data centre.
Under the new infrastructure, IBM is introducing a metering system so that Morgan Stanley pays only for the computing power it uses. Processing power, storage capacity and networking bandwidth will be supplied automatically, dialed up and down as needs dictate.
IBM will also provide help desk and desk side support as a managed service to approximately 20,000 users in Morgan Stanley's Individual Investor Group.
IBM describes the migration of Morgan Stanley's processing to an 'on demand data centre', as a significant vote of confidence in its future business strategy for offering software on tap