Simultaneously to the signing of the outsourcing agreement, COL was appointed a Digital re-seller, responsible for key corporate accounts in Hong Kong, and for value-added sales to Comshare and Dun and Bradstreet customers.

'The new disaster recovery centre reflects both Digital's commitment to provide multi-vendor disaster recovery services to its customers in Asia and COL's determination to make outsourcing a major revenue source into the next century,' said COL managing director Richard Weatherstone.

Under the agreement, the disaster recovery and outsourcing services will be marketed jointly by Digital and COL.

The agreement also makes COL a master re-seller, servicing key accounts within the Wheelock and Wharf Holdings groups, and other large companies with which COL has strong ties, particularly those in the financial services, media and telecommunications industries. COL is a subsidiary of Wheelock Pacific.

In addition, COL will market Digital systems as a platform for the software products that the company represents in Hong Kong, including Comshare's Commander executive information system, as well as client/server applications for financial, manufacturing and human resources applications from Dun and Bradstreet Software.

Mr Taylor said the services were 'aimed at people that are providing services for themselves at the moment, and who want to find a more cost-effective way of doing things'.

Mr Taylor said his firm had plans to expand both its outsourcing and disaster recovery services. The merging of the two disaster recovery service nearly doubles COL's client list for the service.

Before the merger, COL had eight disaster recovery customers and Digital had five.