Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The strategic acquisition will increase IBM capabilities in helping clients ensure business continuity and providing IT infrastructure and data recovery services in case of unplanned events or outages.

SBCS offers business continuity services to many major financial institutions, government bodies and international corporations and has more than 40 modern recovery sites worldwide, among them the largest business recovery site in Europe. Under the acquisition, IBM will add more than 10,000 recovery seats configured as financial trading rooms, call centers and workplaces.

With approaching deadlines for forthcoming government regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley in the U.S. and Basel II in Europe, business continuity and recovery services have increasingly become more of a priority for businesses.

"Schlumberger Business Continuity Services will complement and expand IBM's global business continuity capabilities," said Philippe Jarre, vice president, Business Continuity and Resiliency Services, IBM Europe, Middle East, Africa. "As companies' business processes have grown increasingly dependent on IT, clients look for integrated business continuity solutions that cover the full range from data centers via applications to business processes. With more than 40 years of experience in the business continuity and disaster recovery industry, IBM offers a one-stop shop for business continuity and recovery services across most multi-vendor platforms."

Schlumberger Business Continuity Services, headquartered in London, has long-term contracts with more than 750 clients around the world. IBM intends to combine Schlumberger Business Continuity Services' sales organization and employees into one dedicated organization within IBM Global Services.

More than 260 SBCS employees are expected to transfer to IBM, the global leader in IT services revenue and marketshare.

Once completed, the combination of IBM and Schlumberger's business continuity services will provide IBM's clients with an enhanced service to enable them to better tackle key business issues such as compliance with new government data protection regulations required by Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel II.

IBM Business Continuity and Recovery Services has 130 business continuity locations around the world and, with one phone call, clients can have their data automatically routed to one of the locations. They can even move their own employees into the centers temporarily.