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Sprint Nextel 'insourcing' from IBM

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
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Tom Krazit

Sprint Nextel appears to be bringing IT workers back in-house from IBM as part of a re-evaluation of the company's outsourcing strategy by its new CIO.

Information Week reported Thursday that Sprint Nextel is giving its IT and customer-service outsourcing deals with IBM a fresh look. Part of that overhaul involves bringing back some workers who had been essentially sold to IBM in one of those "rebadging" deals.

An IBM spokesman declined to comment on the report, but financial analyst Thomas Weisel Partners put out a research note on the deal Friday. "Rescoping of outsourcing contracts is a typical outcome with larger mergers, particularly when the surviving CIO did not negotiate the original deal," analyst David Grossman wrote in the report. Sprint Nextel CIO Richard LeFave is a Nextel veteran brought into the fold upon the completion of Sprint's purchase of Nextel last year.

A Sprint Nextel representative could not be reached for comment.