IBM buys Schlumberger's disaster recovery unit

IBM has boosted its disaster recovery capability with the acquisition of the business continuity services unit (SBCS) of Schlumberger for an undisclosed fee.

The unit was left over from Schlumberger's sale of its Sema IT services division to Atos Origin and the acquisition will see around 260 staff transfer to IBM.

SBCS is based in London and has more than 40 recovery sites worldwide servicing existing deals with over 750 customers.

Philippe Jarre, VP of business continuity and resiliency services at IBM Europe, said the acquisition will boost IBM's capabilities ahead of approaching deadlines for regulations such as Basel II that require financial services firms to have increased resiliency.

"As companies' business processes have grown increasingly dependent on IT, clients look for integrated business continuity solutions that cover the full range from data centres via applications to business processes," he said in a statement.

The European market for business continuity is currently worth $2.2bn, according to IDC, and is predicted to grow at 6.2 per cent CAGR through to 2007.

Heather Bruce, analyst at Ovum Holway, said it is no surprise that one of the big services companies picked up SBCS.

"We had expected to see it end up with one of the major players - the other likely contenders were HP and EDS, or BC specialist SunGard - so the news comes as no great surprise. It also makes good sense. Schlumberger BC will complement and expand IBM's existing global BC capabilities," she said.