IBM Scores Cloud Win with The Hartford Contract

IBM (IBM) has scored a major cloud contract with The Hartford, a 200-year-old company dealing in property and casualty insurance, group benefits and mutual funds. Under the contract, IBM has signed on for a six-year technology services agreement to implement a new service model that includes a private cloud infrastructure.

“As The Hartford continues to execute on its strategic plan, we are making significant technology investments to increase operational effectiveness and improve our competitiveness,” said Andy Napoli, president of Consumer Markets and Enterprise Business Services at The Hartford, in a prepared statement. “The partnership with IBM will help The Hartford implement a strategic technology infrastructure that will provide us with greater agility and offer us more flexibility and transparency as we continue to grow our businesses.”

For Big Blue, it’s a huge win in the cloud computing space, even though IBM has not yet really provided a clear cloud strategy. That strategy has become less fuzzy with the acquisition of SoftLayer, but although IBM positions itself as a major competitor to the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS), there are still plenty of questions around its overall cloud strategy and how it intends on competing.

The agreement with The Hartford is valued at $500 million and will mean IBM is providing a variety of services, including mainframe, storage, backup and resiliency.

“Today’s announcement is an example of how leading organizations are utilizing cloud technology to gain competitive advantage,” said Philip Guido, general manager of IBM Global Technology Services for North America, in a prepared statement. “Clients today are looking for IT partners who can understand and help drive their business with a focus on innovation and delivering business outcomes, not just IT efficiency. This expansion of our partnership with The Hartford illustrates the work IBM is leading with cloud.”

IBM has positioned itself as a major competitor in the cloud space, even going so far as to suggest it’s doing better than incumbents like Amazon Web Services, but its cloud strategy has been a little fuzzy. It strengthened that strategy with the acquisition of SoftLayer, but there are still gaps in Big Blue’s cloud strategy.