Two deals drive IBM shares

Shares of IBM were on the rise this morning after the company announced plans to acquire Canadian company DataMirror Corp. and signed a seven-year, $1.4 billion technology services deal with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. IBM agreed to pay $161 million for DataMirror, a data-technology company that employs about 220 people and has more than 2,200 customers including FedEx Ground and Union Pacific Railroad. Its technology identifies captured data and delivers it in real time to processes, applications and databases. "Organizations need the ability to capture and use information in real-time to help them make better business decisions, better serve their customers and increase operational efficiencies," Ambuj Goyal, manager of IBM Information Management, said in a statement. "The combination of DataMirror technology and IBM information management software will help customers bring real-time data analysis closer to actual business processes, allowing them to be more competitive and to generate more value from their information." IBM also won a seven-year, $1.4 billion outsourcing contract from AstraZeneca to help the British pharmaceutical company manage its internal technology operations. The contract, which expands an existing one that the companies have had for seven years, guarantees Astrazenica IBM's IT services including servers, data storage, computers, service desks, PC management, and networking services for AstraZeneca's global operations.