FremantleMedia, one of the largest international creators and producers of entertainment programming brands in the world, has signed a five-year, multi-million pound IT deal with Computacenter Services aimed at reducing operational costs and improving the availability of its IT infrastructure.
Computacenter will manage FremantleMedia’s 1,600 desktops and laptops and 100-plus servers as well as providing IT support to its 1,200 UK staff.
Adam Seaman, operations manager for FremantleMedia commented: “We deliver thousands of hours of programming every year, and our IT systems play a key role in the production process. By partnering with Computacenter, we expect to be able to increase the availability and scalability of our infrastructure, which will help ensure our staff have access to the IT systems they need to make and distribute new television programmes.”
FremantleMedia will be using Computacenter Services’ shared facilities to enable 24x7 monitoring of its core systems, including servers in France, Germany, Australia and the US. These systems are part of the production of popular UK television shows, such as The X Factor, The Apprentice, The Bill, Pop Idol and Grand Designs. Computacenter Services will also provide on-set support during filming.
FremantleMedia has transferred its service desk to Computacenter’s Service Support Centre, which will handle up to 1,900 user queries a month. Neil Muller, director of Managed Services at Computacenter, said: “IT departments are under increasing pressure to improve the availability of core business systems with the same or even fewer resources. A shared services model allows organisations to take advantage of proven repeatable processes and extensive specialist resources to deliver both cost benefits and continuous quality improvements.”
The transitioned service, which went live in March 2007, includes request management, on-site hardware and software maintenance, system installations, asset tracking, proactive remote server and infrastructure management and IT procurement.
