I.B.M. Steals the Spotlight Ahead of H.P.’s Big Day

I.B.M. has lobbed a preemptive strike of sorts against rival Hewlett-Packard. Late Thursday, it announced four fresh services contracts just ahead of a Monday meeting in Silicon Valley where H.P. is expected to explain the strategy and structure for its new acquisition, Electronic Data Systems.

The flurry of announcements marks the start of a protracted marketing and technology battle between the technology industry’s largest companies.

One of the deals secured by I.B.M. took place in the Philippines with PSBank, the second largest savings bank in the country. I.B.M. was eager to point out that the bank shifted from an Oracle database running on H.P.’s hardware to performing its online transaction processing on an I.B.M. mainframe.

The other deals included a seven-year outsourcing agreement with the PTT Chemical Public Company of Thailand, a new data center for Saigon Commercial Bank in Vietnam and a technology agreement with Skynet in Lithuania around Internet protocol television, or IPTV.

I.B.M. was not terribly subtle about celebrating the international flair of its services and technology expertise. But it’s not really subtlety that the company is after when it comes to H.P. and the services battlefield.

“HP will claim next week that they have some great new capabilities,” said David Parker, the vice president of strategy for I.B.M. Global Services. “I will be surprised if they are able to be very specific about that. It is still yesterday’s business model.”

At H.P.’s Monday meeting, the company make its E.D.S. pitch to securities analysts. Chief executive Mark Hurd and other top H.P. executives plan to explain why the $14 billion acquisition makes sense and what kinds of internal changes will take place now that the purchase has been completed.

Since the megadeal was first announced, industry observers have been quick to question why HP would want to take on a business with 140,000 employees and lackluster financial results. Meanwhile, H.P. sees E.D.S. as a way to add weight to its services lineup and, well, give I.B.M. a harder time.

Without a doubt, the E.D.S. acquisition establishes the services realm as the next big battleground for I.B.M. and H.P. –- both of which look to make money off customers introducing new technology projects as well as those consolidating their infrastructures.

I.B.M. continues to argue that it is in unmatched in its combination of vast experience and research and development. H.P. is just adding more bodies and still lacks the consulting muscle needed to compete on a global scale, according to Mr. Parker.

H.P. will, of course, be sure to take its counter crack at I.B.M. next week.