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Who's Buying What

June 2006

UNIVERSAL SIGNS SEVEN-YEAR BPO AGREEMENT

Universal Insurance of North America, Sarasota, Fla., has signed a seven-year agreement with CGI Group Inc. valued at between $45 and $75 million for policy and accounting business process services (BPS). Montreal-based CGI will process Universal's personal lines (book of business) including homeowners, dwelling-fire, auto, and umbrella in Texas and Florida. CGI will continue to support Universal's business processing needs as they expand their services into new markets. As part of this agreement, CGI will open a processing facility in Tampa to support Universal Insurance and other Florida-based insurance customers. CGI will initially hire 50 professionals and expects staff to grow to more than 200 professionals over the next two years.

KYOBO LIFE CONTRACTS WITH IBM FOR IT CONSULTING

KYOBO Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Seoul, South Korea, contracted with Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM to operate and manage its IT infrastructure. Under the terms of the 10-year agreement, which has a total contract value of approximately $340 million, IBM will provide IT strategy consulting services to help develop and advance KYOBO's IT vision and strategy. IBM will also manage KYOBO's servers, storage systems, network and desktop computers and operate its data and disaster recovery centers. Additionally, IBM will provide IT skills development and IT management training services, called "IT University," for KYOBO's employees. KYOBO will be charged fees based on actual computer usage, under IBM's on-demand pricing model, providing the company with a flexible and cost-efficient IT system.

HASTINGS MUTUAL PLANS TO IMPROVE APP PERFORMANCE

With the goal of improving the quality, availability and performance of its Web-based Policy Express policy issuance system, Hastings Mutual Insurance, a Hastings, Mich., regional insurance company serving the Midwest, deployed AppSight Application Problem Resolution System from New York-based Identify Software. Policy Express is a business application accessed by nearly 850 Hastings agents each day to quote and write customers' policies. AppSight monitors actual application execution (in production, as well as in development and QA) and automatically detect faults and performance issues in .NET, Windows, and J2EE applications. When a problem is detected, AppSight captures a synchronized, real-time log of user actions, system events, performance metrics, configuration data, and code execution flow-much like the "black box" flight recorder on an aircraft capturing a real-time record of a flight.

SOUTHERN TRUST LICENSES CONTENT MANAGEMENT SUITE

Southern Trust Insurance Co., a Macon, Ga.-based regional provider of personal and commercial lines P&C insurance, licensed AcroSoft Corp.'s Insurance Content Management (ICM) solution. What began as a project to provide a back-up of the carrier's files and documents as part of its overall catastrophe plan led to the selection of a full document management system, according to Steven H. Shiflett, vice president, secretary and treasurer of Southern Trust Insurance. AcroSoft Corp., Columbia, S.C., develops electronic imaging, filing and storage, object, document and automated workflow and work management solutions.

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