BOSTON, USA: Panasonic Corp has hired IBM Corp to run a web-based email system for the Japanese electronics giant's entire 380,000 strong workforce, the industry's largest cloud computing contract to date.

It is an important win for IBM, which has lagged behind rivals Amazon.com Inc, Google Inc, Microsoft Corp and Salesforce.com Inc in developing cloud computing products.

Cloud computing refers to the fast-growing field of delivery of software and other services from remote data centres over the Internet. Research firm Gartner estimates sales of cloud-based applications, including email programs will soar 47 percent this year to $9.6 billion.

"This is kind of a litmus test that allows IBM to go forward in the market," said Gartner analyst Robert Anderson.

Panasonic's chief information officer for the Americas, Cassio De Oliveira, said in an interview on Wednesday Panasonic was replacing in-house email systems in the Americas that run Microsoft's software and systems in other parts of the world running on IBM's Lotus email systems.

He said Panasonic intends to sign other large deals to outsource key parts of its technology infrastructure, although he declined to be more specific.

The deal with IBM includes its Lotus web-based email along with new cloud software for calendars, web meetings, file sharing, social networking and other collaboration tools.