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Accenture moves up in HR BPO market share with 10-year BT deal     British Telecom and Accenture have signed a 10-year, $575 million (GBP306 million) business process outsourcing (BPO) contract for human resource (HR) administration services.    According to research from the Yankee Group, the deal puts Accenture's market share in the HR BPO space at 16% - just a percentage point behind current market leaders     pensioners only the UK. Under the new contract, Accenture will also provide services to another 10,000 BT employees in 37 countries around the world.    The services to be provided under the new contract include customer contact/call centre, recruitment, pension administration, payroll and benefits administration,     performance management administration, health and safety, and HR advisory and information services.    The new contract will take effect August 1, 2005, and it will be preceded by a jointly developed transition program to define the service delivery framework.    Two of Europe's incumbent telecom     operators, BT and Telecom Italia, have now adopted HR BPO services and both of them partner with Accenture HR Services. Globally, communications providers such as Nortel, Lucent and Avaya are also engaging with outsourcing their HR processes to companies such as Convergys, Hewitt and ACS.        Hewitt Associates.    The contract significantly expands the geographic reach of services that Accenture has been providing to BT under a previous five-year contract, which covered employees and
EDS not looking to sell A.T. Kearney     While EDS posted higher-than-expected quarterly profit, its consulting business, AT Kearney, posted an operating loss, as the company continues to struggle to integrate Kearney's high-end advisory business into its IT and outsourcing operations.    A.T. Kearney posted an operating loss of $17 million on revenues of $193 million for the fourth quarter of 2004. Its full-year results are yet to be released. In 2003, when it was granted greater autonomy from EDS in an effort to win back clients, it lost $7 million on revenues of $846 million.    Speaking to analysts EDS Chairman and CEO Michael Jordan said he     on growth initiatives including an acquisition, expanding in low-cost countries and investing in technology.    Analysts expect that 2006 will be another difficult year for EDS, as it bids to keep its largest customer, General Motors Corp.    Investors were concerned by a decline in revenue, a big shortfall in new contract signings, and the company's unexpected weak earnings forecast for the first quarter and all of 2005.    New contract signings fell to $US3.8 billion from $US4 billion as some deals that had been expected to close in the fourth quarter were moved to the first quarter.        expects A.T. Kearney to show "a little bit of a rebound this year, but not much. I think most of the high-value consulting companies are struggling a little bit."    While many analysts view Kearney, or large parts of it, as prime candidate for sale, Jordan was adamant the consultancy was not for sale, calling published reports that EDS was shopping Kearney "completely erroneous."    EDS is trying to expand outside its slow-growing core business of IT and Jordan said EDS would spend more than $1 billion this year		IBM expands consulting unit with new acquisition     In a move to strengthen the finance and administration transformation services offered by its consulting unit, IBM will acquire Equitant for an undisclosed sum. IBM said it is paying a "fair market value" for the company.    Equitant, a provider of business transformation outsourcing services, is a private company with operations in Dublin, Ireland and Stamford, Connecticut. It has been reported that all 200 Equitant employees will move to IBM.    Citing research from IDC that the finance and accounting business process outsourcing services market will     reach $16.5 billion this year, IBM has said it is focusing its efforts towards strengthening its business transformation services and that it is open to making similar acquisitions in the future.    Equitant was created in 1987 to provide working capital management to large corporations and has since evolved to focus on consulting customers how to manage the order-to-cash cycle. The company counts Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft among its clients.