General Motors will hire as many about 8,500 IT workers worldwide over the next three to five years, with one of its new IT centers located in Austin. The hiring is part of the company's three-year plan to “insource” much of its IT work, ending contracts with many third-party service providers in a move to regain more control over its technology efforts. Newly installed CIO Randy Mott wants to return everything from data centers to software development into the fold. Today only 10 percent of such work is done by GM employees. Mott hopes to raise the figure to 90 percent. Vendors on the losing end include HP/EDS, IBM, Capgemini and Wipro. Computerworld says GM is seeking software engineers, business analysts, messaging engineers, analysts, developers, testers, planners and infrastructure architects. It also wants platform-specific expertise, including people with knowledge of Maximo asset management tools, Tableau analytics software and Peoplesoft. One big loser in the shuffle may be HP. In 2006, GM signed $7 billion worth of contracts with EDS, which HP acquired in 2008. (Coincidentally, Mott was formerly HP’s CIO and was responsible for a big IT consolidation there as well.) In June, HP announced it would restructure its enterprise services business and would eliminate up to 9,000 positions, part of a larger plan to cut 27,000 jobs (8 percent of the workforce) by 2014. GM’s master plan includes:

• Data Center Consolidation: From 23 data centers to two new ones in Michigan, with the latest hardware and more automation.
• Application Consolidation: At least 40 percent of GM's apps could go by moving to standardized, global applications.
• Software Development Centers: There will likely be three in the U.S., with sites to be determined (one will likely be in Detroit) by the local development talent.
• Portfolio Management: Every IT project will require a cost-benefit analysis and a priority set by business units.
• Data Warehouse Consolidation: GM has about 200 data marts today. It plans to move to one architecture so data is easier to access and use.

Updated Oct. 1 to correct number of anticipated hires.