24/7 Wall St.

We confirmed that Reuters (NASDAQ:RTRSY) has apparently given a $1 Billion IT outsourcing pact to Fujitsu Services to launch a standardized IT platform across its global operations.  Reuters wants to save $1 Billion over the course of a 10-year pact.

According to CNET, the pact is covering Reuters’ core IT internal services, including e-mail and desktop, and consolidates a number of existing deals and will manage some outside suppliers.  We took our own peak at the announcement and it isn’t from this morning and during a weak where market malaise and volatility ruled it probably seems muted in comparison.  Oddly enough, the term virtualization is thrown in for the entire network, which has to be noise to the ears of VMware (NYSE:VMW) and the few other virtualization providers.  Fujitsu is working with several other organisations, including Dell, Satyam, Siemens and Verizon, to deliver the overall service.

TIBCO Software used to be under Reuters and it eventually was jettisoned into its own company.  That was in the 1990’s and a few years ago it looks like ties were severed.  TIBCO still lists Reuters as a top 100 client on their site and they are still active with the company, but as an ex-parent you have to wonder if it could have gone their way.

We could speculate on it, but there are too many unknowns in light of the pending Reuters merger with Thomson (NYSE:TOC) and we don’t want to create any false buzz on a deal from earlier this week.  TIBCO does still do a lot of work with Reuters and TIBCO did just over $517 million in revenues in 2006 and is expected to jump to $585 million this year.  There is always even the possibility that TIBCO could even get to pick up more crumbs from it.

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he is the publisher of the 24/7 Wall St. Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers.