The ambitious $11 billion project to manage US troops' electronic health records will see International Business Machines Corp., the world's biggest computer services provider, and Epic Systems Corp., teaming up to give a tough competition.

IBM is all set to make its bid today and rival bids are likely to come from Accenture Plc and Northrop Grumman Corp. The Defense Department is yet to formally start the competition for the information-technology system.

The sole intention behind winning the competition is to get one of the biggest opportunities in federal information technology. Andy Maner, managing partner for IBM's U. S. federal division, said in a phone interview, that people expect results and that is why this bid is important for them. He emphatically said that IBM does not bid on everything that comes its way, but whatever it bids on, it intends to change the world.

It is possible to have posting of the Pentagon's solicitation for the contract next month, with a 10-year duration.

Dublin-based Accenture and Falls Church, Virginia-based Northrop are other companies that can also offer their bid for the contract, said Brian Friel, a Bloomberg Industries analyst.

Accenture was approached by the US government to fix the problems in health care. gov, which is an enrolment website for the federal health-care overhaul.

"Service members, their families and health-care providers who care for them deserve the best health care our country can provide. They would benefit from an integrated system that leverages best practices from other large and successful health-care organizations", said Carl Dvorak, president of Verona, Wisconsin-based Epic, in a statement.

Health care industry widely uses Epic's enterprise software. Johns Hopkins Medicine, Kaiser Permanente and the Cleveland Clinic are some of the users of the software. IBM and Epic have mad joint efforts for making some other health-care projects a success, including for Kaiser.