Analysts International on Tuesday said that it has captured a staff augmentation contract from IBM, two weeks after Keane Inc. announced a decision to drop its staff augmentation work at IBM.

A spokesperson for Minneapolis-based Analysts International said the company will provide staffing in a broad range of technical areas.

The company believes that its relationship with IBM going forward will be “more of a partnership and a little more strategic than it had been previously,” the spokesperson said.

Keane on July 13 announced plans to withdraw from its staff augmentation relationship with IBM.

Brian Keane, the company’s president and CEO, cited a “recent change in [IBM’s] direction” in the company’s decision to wind down the IBM work, but he did not elaborate.

Speaking during a recent earnings call, he said the move will let Keane concentrate on areas better aligned with the company’s strategy.

Keane reported its current annual revenue run-rate for the IBM business at about $28 million. The company generated $40 million in IBM-related revenue last year.

John Leahy, Keane’s chief financial officer, said Keane did about $8 million in IBM business in the first quarter. Keane said during the earnings call that he expects the company’s business with IBM to drop by $1 million to $2 million per quarter.

Are the two events—Analysts International’s new contract and Keane’s departure—related?

The Analysts International spokesperson said he “knows of no such connection, nor of any reason to assume that there would be a connection.” Keane, meanwhile, points to its recently captured $367 million contract in the Australian state of Victoria as the model for the type of business it plans to pursue. Keane will develop and manage a transportation ticketing system for Victoria. The project exemplifies the vertically oriented, integrated solutions the company now seeks to build.

Wipro Inks Embedded Linux Deal

Empower Technologies has selected Wipro Ltd. as its authorized service provider and integrator for its embedded Linux product.

The arrangement focuses on Empower’s LDK5910, a development kit for the company’s LEO (LinuxDA Embedded O/S) for Texas Instruments’ OMAP5910 dual-core processor.

Mark Janke, a business development manager at Empower, said the development kit is designed to help hardware designers create specialized handheld devices. A customer could use Empower’s product to build, for example, a customized PDA for the medical market.

Empower reported on Monday that it had signed a letter of engagement with Wipro. Under the agreement, Empower will tap into Wipro’s outsourcing client base to promote the LDK5910.

Wipro will provide third-party development and support. In addition to consulting fees, Wipro will receive a portion of the LinuxDA Embedded OS licensing fee.

Empower in May released the LDK5910 as its latest LEO development platform.

Wipro is a member of the Embedded Linux Consortium, a vendor-neutral trade group that promotes Linux in the embedded, applied and appliance computing sectors.

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