Headlines:
E-Trade on the Hunt For an Ad Agency EDS Wins $150M In Overseas Pacts Morgan Chase Trade Partnership State Bank of Tex. Feeling More Intact
E-Trade on the Hunt For an Ad Agency
E-Trade Group Inc. said Thursday that it had begun a search for a new agency to handle the creative portion of its national advertising account.
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the San Francisco firm that has been E-Trade's creative agency of record since 1999, has chosen not to participate in the review process, according to E-Trade.
A banking and brokerage company that relies on the Internet and automated teller machines as its primary customer touchpoints, E-Trade says it wants an ad agency that will produce "a set of results-oriented, branded campaigns."
"We've been very successful at building our brand and our customer base," said Pam Kramer, the Menlo Park, Calif., company's chief marketing officer. "Now it's about connecting with consumers in a more targeted way. We're looking for a creative agency partner that can offer the company innovative solutions consistent with our brand and what customers expect from E-Trade Financial.
"We are looking for creative that can be leveraged across multiple communications disciplines. We want a partner that understands the innovation and unique value we have to offer in investing, banking, and lending."
To that end E-Trade has hired an agency-search firm, Select Resources International.
EDS Wins $150M In Overseas Pacts
Electronic Data Systems Corp. announced $150 million in new and renewed contracts with firms in Italy, France, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
In a press release Wednesday, the information technology company said it received a seven-year contract from Italy's Banca Antonveneta SpA to provide business continuity services via a fiber-optic connection between the bank and an EDS data center.
EDS said that it secured one of the largest infrastructure contracts within the French telecom sector when it signed a deal to provide Bouygues Telecom SA with 1,000 midrange servers and other applications.
The Plano, Tex., company has signed on to provide Netherlands Railways with desktop services. EDS will manage about 2,000 desktop computers. In addition, EDS will provide helpdesk-like services for the Dutch firm for 56 months.
Sage Life Ltd., a South African insurance firm, extended its EDS midrange hosting and applications development services contract until 2010.
Finally, EDS will process check and television licenses for the British Post Office the next five years.
Last year Electronic Data Systems had revenue of $21.5 billion.
Morgan Chase Trade Partnership
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has formed an alliance with the trade management company Vastera Inc. that will serve exporters and importers.
Paul H. Simpson, the global trade, procurement, and card services business executive in the J.P. Morgan Treasury Services unit, called the arrangement "truly a synergistic relationship."
Vastera, of Dulles, Va., offers a set of Web software products and services for the management of information and processes across the physical supply chain in such areas as customs, compliance, risk, and tracking of goods' physical movement.
Morgan Chase is a leader in trade finance and was the largest U.S. issuer of letters of credit last year, Mr. Simpson said in an interview July 1.
"The best-in-class company in the world for this is Vastera," he said. The two companies had worked together in the past, but talks heated up about four months ago after at least 15 Morgan Chase trade finance clients asked for more services.
"We had multiple clients who came to us and said, 'We love what you're doing. Now, can you do this too?' " Mr. Simpson said.
Vastera announced the deal June 25.
Mark Ferrer, Vastera's president and chief executive, said in the announcement that the "combined service offerings provide clients with unique supply chain management capabilities and a significant competitive advantage."
Mr. Simpson said the two companies will initially approach clients with a joint offering to help manage both the physical and financial aspects of trade. Then they plan to integrate their technologies so that customers can go online to track the goods and the money "in a way that will look seamless to the client."
This could happen quickly, he added. "You're not talking a long time. You're talking months."
Mr. Simpson said this could involve "product extensions in both the spaces we're in" and perhaps using current products in new ways.
State Bank of Tex. Feeling More Intact
State Bank of LaGrange, Tex., has solved some minor mysteries by installing new system-change detection software on its computer network, a technology analyst there says. The program also should help protect the bank from mishaps that could be more damaging, he added.
Before installing the software, the $588 million-asset bank had no way of tracking documents on its network, said Chris L. Davis, the technical analyst.
"At some locations some files just seemed to up and disappear," Mr. Davis said in an interview June 24. "It all turned out to be an accident, but it was really nice to figure out what was happening."
State Bank, a subsidiary of Texas United Bancshares, has a network of 33 servers at its data center in LaGrange and has 20 offices in the area, Mr. Davis said.
It runs its technology operations in-house. It added the new program, Intact 3.5 from Pedestal Software Inc. of Newton, Mass., a couple of months ago to guard its workstations and servers against unauthorized changes to security settings, which could make the system vulnerable if a computer hacker or virus got past its intrusion-detection system.
State Bank already used the vendor's SecurityExpressions software, "so the first place I looked was Pedestal," Mr. Davis said.
The Intact software can automatically restore files and settings. Pedestal said the program is now the only system-change detection and recovery software providing real-time monitoring of IIS (Internet Information Server) and SQL (Structured Query Language) servers.
