Microsoft Outsourcing IT Services

Todd Bishop:

Infosys Technologies Ltd. will manage Microsoft’s internal IT services worldwide under a three-year deal announced by the global outsourcing company this morning. According to an Infosys news release, those services will include technical assistance for employees at their desks and from centralized help desks, in addition to management of “applications, devices and databases in 450 locations across 104 countries.”

Infosys is headquartered in Bangalore. Neither Apple nor Google would ever consider outsourcing IT. It’s a point of pride at both Apple and Google just how little they spend on IT compared to typical Fortune 100 companies (which typical companies, of course, use Microsoft infrastructure).

Update: Bishop posted an update with a response from Microsoft, in which they claim this is not a change so much as a consolidation of third-party support services. And, a little birdie informs me that Apple “heavily leverages” Infosys as well.

Update 2: After reading the above update, another little birdie emailed to clarify that Apple uses “Infosys and other outsourcing companies for code development of internal systems, not for support,” and that Apple low head-count low-cost support costs are indeed a source of pride and a selling point to their customers in the enterprise. And then yet another little birdie suggested that Radar, of all things, is one such system that is maintained by outsourced developers.

★ Tuesday, 13 April 2010