IBM ousted at Barclays

Barclays Bank has rejected IBM as the supplier of equipment for a major upgrade of its front till and back-office systems. The defection to Bull Information Systems, from the bank's traditional supplier IBM, was prompted by Big Blue's decision to discontinue its RS 6000 model 250 servers.

"We would have quite possibly continued to use the old model, but the stocks were exhausted," said Keith Millbanks, manager of the project at Barclays Bank.

Barclays had used an IBM RS 6000 model 250 to support X-terminals and printers. When IBM ceased production of the machine the bank put a contract for a replacement out to competitive tender. The final short list was narrowed down to a Bull AIX-based Escala minitower and an IBM MT 104E.

"Functionally there was not a great deal of choice. But the Bull server had the edge in terms of performance. Upgradability was more straightforward and it was better financially," said Millbanks.

The #1m contract awarded to Bull will involve the replacement of equipment and not a full roll-out. Barclays stressed it would continue to use IBM kit.

The Bull systems will run a portfolio of proprietary applications covering sales and services, customer information and mortgage sales support. Barclays tested the competing systems across a 10-site pilot.

The Escala minitowers are based on PowerPC processors and feature Bull's Powerscale SMP technology. Bull said it offered Barclays scaleable and fast systems that can be expanded to make use of future performance enhancements.