BT weds its business divisions

Services Syntegra and Syncordia units marry in a move expected to create a top 20 force in the global market.

BT will merge its services business units, Syntegra and BT Syncordiaeate a top 20 force in the global market. Solutions, next month to create a top 20 worldwide player.

Details of the merger will not be released until mid-July, but the divisions said they would concentrate on providing a broad spectrum of converged services for customers.

Danny Garvey, director of marketing and strategy at Syncordia, said: 'From mid-July, we will be refocusing on our systems business within BT. Part of that will be bringing together the abilities of Syncordia and Syntegra.'

Speculation that the two units would merge began after the creation of BT Worldwide in February, which promised, under the leadership of Alfred Mockett, to concentrate on communications services.

According to industry analyst Richard Holway, the two units will create a 'formidable force' in the network services market. Anthony Millar, analyst at Richard Holway, said combining the systems integration strengths of Syntegra with the network management ability of BT Syncordia Solutions made common sense.

'It was obvious that these two should get together with a broader product,' said Millar. 'It seemed that BT was losing out significantly on the potential crossover of two parts of its business. The combined force will be very formidable in the network-related side. We're delighted that BT has decided to do it.'

However, Garvey said BT was in no rush to combine the businesses. 'It's not something that we needed to do now. We could have done it in 12 months time,' he said.

Combined, the two BT units - which have the title of BT Solutions - will be one of the top 20 global systems houses, according to Millar. He predicted it will step on the turf of key players, such as EDS and IBM, as well as the datacomms providers such as Cisco.

'Because of the increasing convergence of telecoms with traditional IT, anyone in the IT services market clearly has to be able to operate in the context of telecoms services as well,' Millar added.