Shell and IBM have signed a five-year strategic alliance worth up to $100 million to create three worldwide hubs to standardise Shell's IT Applications Infrastructure.

Shell's "MegaCentres" will initially provide infrastructure for SAP and eBusiness solutions. The first hubs will be located in Kuala Lumpur, The Hague, and Houston, USA.

A single-source arrangement has been agreed with IBM as the prime supplier of the hardware for the megacentres.