BT and corporate reseller Computacenter have finally put pen to paper on their desktop outsourcing agreement and are using it as a model for a joint managed services offering.

This will see BT offering managed helpdesks with Computacenter providing logistical and field support services.

The partnership will initially target the mid-market from June, and BT has claimed that the business could be worth up to £350m over five years.

"The mid-market does not currently benefit from some of the services offered to corporates [such as] integrating voice and data services. This deal will [provide] that," explained Sarah Long, sector director for communications at Computacenter. "This will give us access to mid market customers where we have not been strong in the past."

After weeks of industrial relations wrangling, Computacenter and BT last week signed the desktop outsourcing deal, which sees the reseller provide IT support and services for about 100,000 BT desktops. It is worth £150m in services and £170m in product supply over five years.

Craig Rowland, director of business information systems at BT, said: "We are using this deal as a model [for our own offering] where we provide the helpdesk, and Computacenter will provide logistics and field operations.

"If you look at the middle market it could be worth anything up to £350m [in revenues] over five years and we are already testing pilot customers."

But Richard Ashmore, managing director at services reseller Deverill, warned: "I agree that there is demand in the mid-market but these type of companies would rather partner smaller players that they already have a good relationship with."

The outsourcing deal between the two companies was finalised after members of the Communications Workers Union (CWU) accepted a proposed deal for the staff to be transferred under transfer of undertakings, protection of employment (Tupe) regulations.

"We have put together a package of measures on job security and pensions that go way beyond the normal Tupe provisions," said Ian Cuthbert, assistant secretary at the CWU.