Software Maintenance Specialists: SMS announced Monday it...

Software Maintenance Specialists: SMS announced Monday it has signed a three-year, $5.5-million agreement with Irvine-based Allergan Inc. to develop a decentralized computer network that will eventually link all 4,700 Allergan employees.

The agreement is meant to help Allergan shift its sales, marketing, accounting and personnel operations from a large mainframe system to one using desktop machines.

Allergan, which had $859 million in revenue last year from sales of specialty health care products worldwide, decided to buy the new system after it realized its employees were spending as much time retrieving information as they were analyzing it, said Mike Lach, vice president for information systems.

SMS in Santa Ana has about 150 employees, most of whom work at data centers in Irvine and La Mirada.