Irish e-security firm Vordel is understood to have played an instrumental role in enabling Hewlett-Packard (HP) win a CAN$2bn outsourcing contract to manage the IT resources for the Canadian Imperial Bank Corporation (CIBC).
In a deal brokered last month, HP was appointed the preferred provider of managed services for the bank. As part of the deal, HP has acquired CIBC’s INTRIA-HP, a joint venture between the two companies to develop business intensive IT applications covering areas such as e-commerce, finance and manufacturing.
Key to the deal was Irish firm Vordel’s XML-based Secure Partner Integration Solution, which the company developed specifically for the financial services market, and worked in partnership with HP to install on HP servers based on the new Intel Itanium 2 architecture. Earlier this year the company joined forces with HP, Intel and Microsoft to create the Vordel Secure Partner Integration Solution, which is the first comprehensively secure web services solution available on the market.
Vordel’s technology provides the required link between web services technologies, existing security technologies, providing authentication, authorisation, accounting and content validation for XML-(extensible mark-up language) based communications. The company has headquarters in Dublin and offices in Boston and London.
The Vordel Secure Partner Integration solution allows organisations to integrate their systems quickly and easily with partners using web services technology, based on open standards technology. Typical application would be found in financial services, government and manufacturing sectors.
In recent months Vordel raised approximately €4.5m worth of venture capital. The investment is understood to have been backed by international investment house Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, UK investment house Elderstreet, ICC Venture Capital, the Intel 64 Fund, the Powerscourt Capital Technology Fund, Connolly Corporate Finance and Enterprise Ireland.
Vordel recently became a global reseller with German IT giant Software AG. The company is understood to have undergone a major restructuring over recent months, cutting its staff levels back to 22 people
By John Kennedy
