Dell and WPP Group Form Ad Agency

Now, isn't this an interesting piece of news?

Dell Inc. announced Sunday that it would team up with the WPP Group, the advertising giant, to create a marketing agency to handle $4.5 billion in Dell accounts over three years.

Dell’s advertising and marketing business had been spread among 800 companies worldwide.

“We are making a mutual investment in people, processes and technology to provide greater continuity of the Dell brand globally,” said Casey Jones, vice president for global brand marketing at Dell. “And we will operate together as one marketing and communications team.”

The interesting point about this news is that it shows that after hiving off different pieces of work to different agencies a large firm is seeing benefits in having a centralised provider. As a friend of mine says, this is the "one neck to choke" strategy. Any idea how that would impact other service businesses ? Like consulting?