IBM Passes Torch To Sema For 2002 Winter Olympic GamesIBM Passes Torch To Sema For 2002 Winter Olympic Games

For more than a century, the Olympic Games have showcased the world's greatest athletes. For nearly four decades, the Games also served as a showcase for the best IT applications and infrastructure that IBM had to offer. But when the next round of IT systems testing begins later this month for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, it will be IT service provider Sema behind the controls.

Sema, a business unit of Schlumberger Ltd., has been part of IT management for the Olympics since Barcelona in 1992, but only as a subcontractor to IBM. Sema is now preparing for its newest role as the Olympics' primary IT organization. Beginning June 25, Sema will test the Olympics' IT systems in front of the International Olympic Committee, individual sporting federations, and broadcasters who will rely on the technology as a source of real-time data during the Games.

In 1998, the International Olympic Committee chose Sema over IBM to spearhead the information technology services consortium for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, the 2004 Athens Olympic Summer Games, the 2006 Olympic Winter Games, and the 2008 Olympic Summer Games. The IT services consortium includes Gateway, Ikano, Kodak, Panasonic, Samsung, Seiko, and Xerox.

Sema is also responsible for developing and running Games Management, which is responsible for the Games' day-to-day functions, such as creating badges for participants, scheduling transportation, and coordinating medical services. In addition, Sema is responsible for two data centers, the deployment of 4,500 Gateway PCs, and for the Technology Operation Center, which manages all the Games' IT services and coordinates the systems at the venues and the help-desk services. Sema's Info Diffusion system collects data for all events and distributes it on an intranet so that it's available to the media.

IBM, which became the Olympics' first IT service provider in 1960 when it signed on to handle data-processing punch cards for the event, passed the torch to Sema in 1998. "The Olympics was a great showcase for our technology, but going forward, IBM decided the investment required outweighed the benefits," says an IBM spokesman. IBM says its primary objective in heading the Olympics' IT efforts was to showcase its technology on a global stage. At the 1996 summer Games in Atlanta, IBM introduced the first Olympics Web site, which received about 189 million hits that year. The site for the 1998 Nagano Games reached 634 million visits, and site for the 2000 Sydney Games received an estimated 11.3 billion visits.

But IBM says that in 1998 the Olympic Committee decided to pursue a different business model, which included a consortium of service providers. The world's largest IT service provider bowed out because it felt it was most successful when it had full responsibility for the event's IT delivery.

Schlumberger acquired Sema, a $2.4 billion IT service provider, in April. Sema, whose clients include France's national electricity company and the British Royal Navy, says its contract with the Olympic Committee is its largest IT sports services engagement.