Affiliated Computer Services Inc. on Monday disclosed a $100.5 million outsourcing contract with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

The five-year deal will focus on information technology outsourcing as opposed to the business process outsourcing projects for which ACS is perhaps better known.

ACS will manage more than 5,000 Unix, Windows/Intel, OS390 mainframe and Open VMS servers housed in GlaxoSmithKline data centers in the United States and United Kingdom.

David Cheatham, director of global IT communications at GlaxoSmithKline, said the company’s outsourcing objective is to boost service.

“Our goal here is to improve our service level and expand our capabilities and do so at a lower cost,” he explained.

The outsourcing pact will affect 150 regular, full-time employees and contract employees. The affected employees are balanced between the pharmaceutical company’s U.S. and U.K. locations, Cheatham said.

He said it is not currently known how many employees will be extending job offers with ACS, adding that ACS and GlaxoSmithKline will establish a plan in the September-October timeframe.

Personnel moves in the U.K. will take into account the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) regulations, which apply to situations in which all or part of a business is transferred to a new employer.

ACS, meanwhile, will assume responsibility for managing data center operations at four GlaxoSmithKline sites: King of Prussia, Pa.; Research Triangle Park, N.C.; Stevenage, U.K.; and Brentford, U.K. The outsourcer also will establish a new governance model for transaction management that includes capacity planning and quality management system support.

The outsourcing project follows two earlier ACS projects at GlaxoSmithKline. A June 2003 deal focused on support for legacy business systems, while a 2004 agreement involved the development of a Registration and Medication Ordering System.

The deal also provides a lift for Apparent Networks Inc. and its AppareNet network diagnostic and assessment software tool. Apparent Networks in July announced an alliance with ACS, in which the outsourcer will use AppareNet internally and support customer data centers. A spokeswoman for Apparent Networks, citing an ACS source, said ACS will use AppareNet on the GlaxoSmithKline deal. ACS also plans to use AppareNet on its outsourcing contract with Walt Disney Co.

Ciber Upgrades ERP for Goya Foods

Ciber Inc.’s Ciber Enterprise Solutions division tapped Lawson Software to upgrade business systems at Goya Foods, the nation’s largest Hispanic-owned food company.

Ciber used Lawson’s middle-market enterprise resource planning software to upgrade Goya’s general ledger, accounts payable, asset management, purchasing, and requisitions and inventory control applications. In the course of the ERP project, Ciber provided project management, application consulting and technical services.

A Ciber spokeswoman said the company continues to work with Goya as the company “determines its information system requirements.”

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