BNP, IBM to set up

IBM Corp. and French bank BNP Paribas SA will form a joint venture to run the bank's IT infrastructure, the companies announced Friday.

The joint venture will manage BNP's mainframes and some 7,000 servers with an online storage capacity of 400T bytes, according to the statement. It will employ 450 people, drawn from both companies. This strategy will enable BNP to retain its skilled technical staff, the bank said.

During the course of the multiyear agreement, worth up to