Ovum. Phil Codling

Comment: Unsurprisingly, CSC itself is not commenting on these rumours at present. And just because the WSJ has heard that these firms are looking into the possibility of a buyout, that's no guarantee that such a bid will be mounted. But in the wake of the highly-leveraged buyout of Sungard earlier this year (which also featured Texas Pacific and Blackstone), such rumours around major US SITS players are bound to continue.

At a current market capitalisation of $8.4bn, CSC is potentially good value. The company's size, spread of large outsourcing contracts and relative lack of mainland European presence would mean that, as a complete entity, it's a relatively unappealing take-over candidate for another large SITS firm. Things could be different for private equity players, especially if, as the Wall Street Journal suggests, they are "exploring how to break up the business". We shouldn't forget that, as well as its services business, CSC has some valuable and widely-used software IPR, notably in financial services.

One thing's for sure: CSC won't want these rumours to linger for long. Customers need to know where they stand when they engage with an IT services provider, especially on longer outsourcing deals, and uncertainty can be very unhelpful indeed.