EDS and Proxima offer innovative products that support the UK government's small and medium enterprise initiative.

Proxima Technology, a provider of software solutions that help organizations understand and improve the business value of IT services, has announced that EDS and Proxima Technology offer innovative products to EDS clients through the UK Government's Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) initiative. The initiative helps SMEs win business with the public sector; EDS and Proxima Technology's recent contribution to a government think-tank research body will provide a cost/benefit analysis and framework in this regard.

Moreover, as part of the EDS UK Incubator Programme, Proxima Technology can promote Centauri Business Service Manager (Centauri) through the EDS global network of clients and industries.

"By engaging Proxima Technology's effort in our client contracts, Proxima Technology helps us enrich and differentiate our managed services through its automated reporting feature and its inherent Six Sigma quality process improvement capability," said Catherine Cremoux, Director, UK Incubator Programme, EDS. "This further demonstrates EDS' commitment to support Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in bringing innovation to large organisations."

EDS selected Centauri based on its unique capability to address complex SLA measurement and real-time reporting for IT outsourcing engagements. EDS will obtain additional returns on their investment by offering improved and additional services to its clients with Centauri.

"Proxima Technology has a proven track record in delivering business service visualisation solutions to many EDS accounts worldwide," said Rod Tieszen, Account Executive, EDS. "This partnership will help us reinforce our commitment in delivering service excellence to our clients."

EDS has received the following benefits from using Centauri over offerings from much larger suppliers:

--Unique features that reduce EDS' cost of managing complex IToutsourcing engagements

--Rapid deployment and implementation

--Highly adaptable and scalable platform that supports rapidly-changing requirements

--Lower total cost of ownership (TCO)

Centauri is also able to integrate easily with existing systems management tools without replacing any; instead, Centauri compliments the incumbent tools by correlating disparate management data and events.

"We are pleased to be part of EDS' UK Incubator Programme. This will provide us with opportunities to reach targeted markets faster," said Paul McNeil, Managing Director of Proxima Technology UK. "Providing endcustomers with visibility into service performance is key to reinforcing and improving service providers' customer confidence levels. EDS is leading the way in that regard by aggressively introducing Centauri to their clients."