EDS said to be nearing a review By David Kiley and Lisa Paikowsk

NEW YORK--Electronic Data Systems (EDS) is on the verge of calling a review for its account now held by Ogilvy & Mather/Houston, sources said.

The Dallas-based data processing and telecommunications division of General Motors was rounded by H. Ross Perot in 1962. Its account bills $7-10 million, and is poised to grow as EDS expands globally.
One ad industry source said last week that EDS ad director Bruce Odza, who formerly worked for O&M, has talked to a few agencies and told some executives that he is close to announcing a review. When questioned about the matter last week, he said that “when and if” anything was going to be announced, “we would agree with O&M about what announcement to make and make it.”
O&M/Houston executives apparently had not been informed about a review for EDS, whose business the agency gradually began amassing four years ago. Jim Hine, managing director of the Houston office, said late last week, “They lEDS) have had no conversations with us.” But when Odza’s comments were repeated to Hine, he acknowledged that, “it appears a review certainly is a possibility.”
An EDS loss would be another blow to O&M/Houston, which was sent reeling well into 1992 with the late ’91 loss of the $35-million Compaq North America account.
Reasons for the review are not immediately obvious. One possible scenario has it that conflict may have caught up with O&M. O&M/ N.Y. is agency of record for AT&T General Business Systems and AT&T International. And despite the fact that AT&T and EDS have co-existed at O&M, the accounts may now be in conflict given the telecommunication giant’s growing presence in EDS’s field of business services and systems integration.
EDS, rounded by Perot in 1962 and sold to GM in 1986, reported sales of $8.2 billion last year. It is the world’s largest provider of computer services. Eighty percent of its business is in North America, and half of that is with GM.
According to statements made by senior management in the last year, though, the company has plans for global expansion for the remainder of the 1990s–which could lead to greater spending levels. EDS, in fact, ran its first TV ad ever more than a year ago to build awareness of its global presence. Sixty percent of the worldwide market for systems management is in Europe and Asia.
Frequent rumors have EDS being shopped around by cashstrapped GM. The buyer in this scenario would probably be British Telecom, which uses Saatchi & Saatchi in the U.K.
Copyright Adweek L.P. (1993)