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CRM Suit Results In $460 Million Settlement
By Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
Article Date: 2010-06-14
In what might be considered a win for the CRM community, a legal settlement has established that CRM software is quite valuable. HP will most definitely regard this as a loss, though, since the settlement involves it paying British Sky Broadcasting a whopping £318 million (or about $460 million).
This affair began a rather long time ago when BSkyB hired Electronic Data Systems in 2000. EDS's contract was worth £48 million, and it was supposed to create a CRM system for BSkyB's help centers.
The problem was that BSkyB found EDS's work to be far from acceptable, and in fact indicated that the organization had lied about its ability to finish the system in a timely fashion. So BSkyB terminated the contract and fashioned the CRM system itself.
Then, in 2004, BSkyB filed a lawsuit against EDS, seeking to receive 709 in compensation. And as you've probably guessed by now, everyone's lawyers did battle for years on end, even as Hewlett-Packard complicated matters in 2008 by acquiring EDS.
Now we're finally seeing the matter get resolved. Paul Sonne reported, "The settlement comes about six months after a British High Court ruled that EDS had been deceitful when pursuing a 2000 customer-service technology contract with BskyB by deliberately misrepresenting how long it would take to complete the job."
Sonne then continued, "Since the January verdict, the two companies have been negotiating a final agreement on settlement costs. The agreement reached Monday includes a £270 million interim settlement payment that EDS already made in February . . ."
So there's a nice sort of affirmation of the value of a good CRM system. And even if the case makes some people worry about the competence of CRM companies in general, experienced CRM firms may be able to spin the situation in their favor, using it as evidence that the skills they offer are hard to come by.
HP certainly doesn't seem interested in providing excuses or arguing any more, at least. A spokesperson stated, "This matter is now closed, having been settled fully and finally on mutually-agreed terms. We will not be commenting further on this legacy issue."
About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.
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