Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB) and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia are planning to pool their buying power and get more out of the major software vendors for less. The three massive banks are forming a consortium to reduce their costs and to develop a secure cloud infrastructure more effectively than if they left it up to the likes of HP (NYSE: HPQ), IBM (NYSE: IBM), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), Bob Evans at InformationWeek reports.

Drawing on quotes from Michael Harte, CIO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, in various Australian news outlets, Evans examines the impetus for the banks' rather bold initiative. He notes the frustrations that have been expressed regarding the speed and manner in which the major vendors help large enterprises reduce their costs.

It makes sense that these financial institutions might team up to get more IT bang for their buck. However, this type of consortium puts rival companies in the strange position of banding together against their own IT partners. As Evans notes, it seems unlikely that the decision-makers at HP, IBM or Oracle anticipated this kind of competition from three large enterprise customers.

"Just goes to show: Whenever we think that this business is all grown up, and that all the drama is past, and that things are quieting down, something unexpected happens and the competitive balance gets turned upside down," Evans writes. "This one's going to be very fun to watch."

For more:
- read Bob Evan's article at InformationWeek

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