On the ever-diminishing roster of old-era technology companies that have survived into the Internet era, EDS would not exactly score well for coolness.
In most people's minds, the company, which employs 300 in the Republic, has only two immediate associations - Mr Ross Perot and data processing - and both are long out of date. Mr Perot founded the company in the early 1960s but left two years after it was bought by General Motors in 1984, while data processing is yesteryear's business.
Even the company's senior management is somewhat apologetic about its matronly image. "Until about a year ago you could accuse us of being a very old, very boring company," acknowledges one manager at EDS headquarters in Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.
Now, a little more than a year after new chief executive and chairman Mr Richard Brown stormed in, axed 5,200 jobs, pruned and reshaped the company's management and whittled 48 separate corporate units into a slimline four, EDS - worth $18.9 billion (€22.1 billion) in revenue in 1999 - is ready for a public image remake as well.
The first step of the makeover happened last week at Comdex in Las Vegas, where EDS was working hard to be hip.
The company blitzed attendees with a constantly running series of advertisements on a big screen while, in his first keynote speech as chief executive, Mr Brown donned a Matrix-style dark suit and glasses. The company hosted the highest-profile party of the week with performances for the 2,000 guests by Macy Gray and the Barenaked Ladies. EDS sponsored Wired.com's coverage of Comdex. So far, so cool.
The more complex business makeover has been happening since Mr Brown stepped into the enormous white stone and glass building of EDS's Plano headquarters.
All press releases now describe the company as "the leading pure-play global services company" - a mouthful of trendy jargon that basically means Mr Brown is determined to drive the company aggressively into the ebusiness arena. Simultaneously, he is also taking the negative proposition that the company is old and large and sprawling and arguing that, on the contrary, EDS is experienced, global and has multiple capabilities.
"A business that isn't fast cannot be good. We have many efficiencies that come with size," says Mr Brown, who served for 26 months as the head of Cable & Wireless in London. "Within a big company, you have smaller units that can respond actively. They can move faster than the smallest boutique."
Perhaps. Companies may need plenty of convincing that EDS is a lean, dot.com architect that can effectively service everyone from the giant corporate customers it reaches through its AT Kearney consultancy arm through to the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market that Mr Brown and his executives say they want to target next.
Computer services is a huge and undeniably profitable area in which to do business, worth $112 billion in 1999 and expected to expand to $177 billion in 2003 in Europe alone, according to analyst International Data Corporation. It is also a big budget item for companies - analysts say that for every $1 a company spends on software, it will fork out $4 to $10 to customise it.
EDS has four units to target the full stretch of the services market: high-end consultancy, mid-range solutions consulting, IT outsourcing and lower-end business process outsourcing. All areas are growth markets, says Mr Bob Segert, managing director of corporate strategy and planning strategic alliances, because the whole market is so broad and multi-layered.
"We believe that the digital economy is bigger than e-business," says Mr Segert. "It's so complex, so broad, that you can't do it alone. You need a computer services company to help." The market is also highly fragmented - the top 20 consultancies have 7 per cent of the market - so "there's tremendous opportunities", he says.
The SME market holds particular promise as it is largely untapped. It is this movement down from its high to medium-end corporate customers that is EDS's most surprising refocus.
"There are some fundamental changes happening at EDS," Mr Brown says. "We are moving down market."
SMEs are an $80 billion market, growing at 30 per cent a year, according to EDS. The company plans to offer Web hosting, security and other software solutions packages, as well as data storage, and pursue the market indirectly, through partners such as MCI/World com, EMC2 and smaller channel partners.
Mr Brown notes that the big IT contracts era is not over. "Three of EDS's biggest contracts ever happened in the past six months," he says, including a $6.9 billion deal with the US Navy.
Other areas for potential growth include what Mr Segert terms "next curve" markets such as mobile solutions, Internet markets and customer relationship management, and global expansion.
"We see significant opportunities in Asia, Europe and South America," says Mr Segert; the company expects most of its revenue in five years' time to come from outside the US, since these are faster-growing markets.
Somewhat late in the game compared with other technology companies, EDS has also begun to build a $1.5 billion venture fund, created last year.
EDS may well be in just the right place at the right time, despite - or because of - its size and background. Corporate clients are beginning to back away from the smaller, more focused consultancy businesses such as Scient and Razorfish that sprang up to service the dot.com market and to help old-style blue-chip companies find an Internet strategy. Analysts have pegged a definite movement back to the computer service veterans like EDS and IBM.
On the other hand, the market remains uncertain about EDS's new direction and hasn't endorsed the company with any significant growth in share price.
Mr Brown has his work cut out and it may well prove to be of the same order of difficulty as bulletdodging, Matrix-style.
Karlin Lillington is at klillington@irish-times.ie.
