Spanish banking group La Caixa has signed a five-year contract, worth EUR200 million, with IBM for the redevelopment of its IT infrastructure to support its move towards Java standards.
IBM says it will extend and enhance the bank's IT infrastructure by revamping and enlarging both the core IBM zSeries platform and supporting technologies, such as z/OS, DB2 and Websphere, allowing performance optimisation, both in the current applications environment and the future Java environment.
The agreement also involves the installation of IBM Unix servers for other work settings at La Caixa and the supply of data storage systems and PCs for the bank's branch offices. IBM will also provide on-going technical support as well as architecture design for developing the bank's future technology platforms.
Juan Pi, EVP, financial services industry, IBM, says the deal with La Caiza "provides further evidence of the trend right across the European banking sector to move to Java as the strategic development platform of choice".
A recent survey by Forrester Research found a majority of European financial services companies are positioning J2EE as a strategic technology. In contrast, only two financial services firms - one in the Netherlands and one in Portugal - consider Microsoft's .NET framework (without J2EE) to be strategic.