Barclays has outsourced the management of its desktop infrastructure to IT services company EDS for seven years in a deal valued at $350m (£210m).

The £30m per annum contract, first revealed in Computing (3 April), is effective immediately. It will make EDS responsible for moving Barclays' 41,700 desktop computers to a standardised architecture and managing all aspects of PC infrastructure.

Toby Broome, chief operating officer for the bank's IT and operations department, says the deal will enable Barclays to lower its group operating costs and provide a common desktop IT service.

'Over the life of the contract, we expect to get a world class desktop service and a world class maintenance and support service,' said Broome.

The deal will also make EDS responsible for deciding what hardware and software to standardise on, although Broome says a version of Windows will be used as the common operating system.

Under the terms of the contract, EDS will manage all aspects of Barclays' desktop infrastructure, covering hardware, software, related servers, and user support. Some 77 staff from Barclays' in-house IT division, Enable, will transfer to the supplier.

'EDS convinced us that they had the best track record and capability to manage the contract and do the best job,' said Broome.

In April, Barclays decided against outsourcing its mainframe and high-end server environment to IBM when it decided that Enable could do the job just as well. The proposed deal would have been worth £100m per year.

'I think the deal with IBM proved that we're not dogmatic about outsourcing. We will only move something to an outsourcing model if it provides us with a directly measurable benefit,' said Broome.

'At the time, we decided that the benefits offered to us by IBM didn't make the case compelling enough, although we may revisit the case again in the future,' he said.