With anew alliance strategy, EDS hopes to edge away from outsourced IT services EDS this week will kick off a partnership with Siebel Systems, taking the first step in a new vendor-relationship strategy emphasizing deeper links with fewer vendors.After a turbulent period of lackluster revenue, management changes, and layoffs, EDS is trying to reposition itself, relying less on supplying outsourced IT services and more on providing its clients with “business process transformation” assistance. As part of that overhaul, the company is developing industry-tailored packaged systems for handling common business processes, such as processing credit cards or insurance claims.EDS will embed Siebel’s sales and analytics technology in the systems it builds, said Sally Herbert, vice president at EDS. It will also lead with Siebel as its preferred CRM system and deploy Siebel’s software internally to replace a patchwork of homegrown and third-party systems. Herbert said the Siebel relationship will supercede previous CRM alliances. “In the past, we’ve had a number of partners that we have used across different clients, but now we are selecting a few partners to work with us across our entire platform,” she said. Additional EDS alliances will be forthcoming, Herbert said. Earlier this year, EDS executives said they’d like to work more closely with Sun Microsystems, Dell, and Microsoft. Technology IndustrySoftware DevelopmentDatabases