General Motors Corp. Thursday awarded IT contracts worth approximately US$7 billion over five years to six vendors, including Electronic Data Systems Corp., which is now responsible for most of GM’s IT operations, as well as IBM Corp. and Indian offshore firm Wipro Ltd.

The other winners of outsourcing deals from the automaker are Hewlett Packard Co., Capgemini and Covisint, a subsidiary of Compuware Corp.

EDS will continue to have the most business at GM, but somewhat less than it has today, GM officials said in a statement, while HP and Capgemini will increase their existing business.

IBM, Compuware Covisint and Wipro “will continue to be strategic IT partners to GM,” the automaker said. It planned to offer more details about its IT plans later this morning.

“This is a significant milestone for General Motors and its Information Systems & Services Group,” Ralph Szygenda, Group Vice President and CIO at General Motors, said in a statement. “Of critical importance is the focus we have had on driving innovation and supporting future globalization and digitization of the company.”

The exact pricing and contract splits were not immediately available. Based on current expenditures, GM would have laid out about $15 billion over the next five years on IT, but it also said the changes announced today would cut costs.

“Over the next five months, we will focus our efforts on assuring a smooth transition,” said Szygenda. “Our primary goals are to avoid any business disruption and ensure our efforts fully support the company’s global operations.”

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