EDS Toasts New Beverage Business This Holiday Season

EDS, the world's most experienced outsourcing services company, today announced a series of consumer beverage industry contracts in Europe, Latin America and the United States worth more than $300 million.

Throughout the year, consumer beverage suppliers continue to depend on technology to grow revenues while fighting shrinking margins and to ensure that inventory is where it needs to be when it's needed - especially in these high demand holiday seasons. Effective business processes, IT networks, servers, desktops and software applications are essential in managing critical business data related to inventory, customers, and retail supply chains - even related to sodas, beer, wine and spirits.

"As the consumer beverage industry continues to become more competitive, fine tuning day-to-day operations with technology can be the differentiator - and make these holiday times run much more smoothly for manufacturers, distributors and retailers," said Chris Sellers, global leader, EDS Consumer Industries & Retail. "EDS applies more than 30 years of experience with global consumer industries and retail companies from around the world to create solutions for our clients that continue to reduce operating costs and increase competitiveness."

Today's announcement, which include many of these IT services, feature the following clients:

• A seven-year contract renewal with Allied Domecq Spirits and Wine to provide desktop support, help desk services and infrastructure management across all of its European operations. EDS will also provide Allied Domecq with a range of value-added services through an innovative, collaborative framework set up as a layer around the core agreement. Working with EDS, Allied Domecq will realize significant savings and operational improvement for its business.
• A five-year add-on agreement with the number one bottling company in Latin American, Coca-Cola FEMSA (KOF). EDS will host the bottling company's midrange servers for its operations in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela. For the past two years, EDS has supported the company's servers, wide area networks, desktop computing, handheld terminals and help desk functions. With EDS as a technology partner, Coca-Cola FEMSA will optimize daily operations and its execution of IT projects, translating into significant savings in operations.
• Two separate contracts with a global beverage distillery for "on demand" IT infrastructure services that include strategic infrastructure, desktop support and network management services, and hosting. EDS will deliver desktop support services and selected applications support using its Best Shore global delivery model, which is new to this agreement. Earlier this month, EDS also announced an industry related new IT outsourcing contract valued at USD$380 million with Fonterra Co-Operative Group Ltd., a multinational dairy company owned by 13,000 New Zealand dairy farmers.

EDS in the Consumer and Retail Industries
As a leading IT service provider in the consumer and retail industries, EDS focuses on a variety of market segments including food/beverage, apparel/footwear, consumer products and all retail outlets including restaurants, mass/department, grocery, drug, convenience, online/catalog and specialty. EDS helps companies in these industries around the world improve inventory management, automate store systems, make supply chains more efficient, and collect and manage customer relationship information.

About EDS
EDS, the world's most experienced outsourcing services company, delivers superior returns to clients through its cost-effective, high-value services model. EDS' core portfolio comprises information-technology and business process outsourcing services, as well as information-technology transformation services. EDS' two complementary, subsidiary businesses are A.T. Kearney, one of the world's leading high-value management consultancies, and UGS PLM Solutions, a leader in product data management, collaboration and product design software. With 2002 revenue of $21.5 billion, EDS is ranked 80th on the Fortune 500. The company's stock is traded on the New York (NYSE: EDS) and London stock exchanges. Learn more at www.eds.com.