IBM Global Services

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IBM Global Services is one of the world's largest business and technology services providers. It is the fastest growing part of IBM, with professionals serving customers in more than 150 countries. IBM Global Services started in the spring of 1991, with the aim towards helping companies manage their IT operations and resources.

The beginning of IBM’s involvement in IT services can be traced back at least to 1989 when Eastman Kodak Company and IBM completed an agreement by which IBM designed, built and managed a new state-of-the-art data center for Kodak in Rochester, New York.

Also in 1986, IBM introduced Business Recovery Services, an offering that enables a business to continue operations in the event of an unplanned outage or disaster.

In 2002, IBM Global Services acquired the management consulting and technology services arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, around the same time the other Big Four accounting firms were selling off their consulting arms (this was from intense pressure to avoid conflicts of interest in light of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act). PwC's consultancy business was sold to IBM for approximately $3.9 billion in cash and stock. This nearly doubled the number of consultants within IBM Global Services.