More opportunities for New Zealand's largest IT firm

EDS, New Zealand's largest IT business, could be employing between 200 and 300 people in export earning activities in the next two to three years.

The company, which is currently 10 per cent owned by Telecom, believes its continued growth owes much to gaining work from overseas given its large share of the local market.

It expects that overseas contracts could create between 25 and 50 new jobs alone after it won application development and maintenance work in a successful bid for inclusion in the EDS global group's own resourcing programme.

"Having such a market share, we've been trying to work out how we can grow further in New Zealand and bringing work here seemed to be a logical thing," managing director Robert Gray said.

He said the company was focused on reversing the brain drain through what he called "brain retain" in which local staff were career paths that included opportunities to work overseas for varying lengths of time if they wished.

* More details in tomorrow's Herald