Alcatel converges on ebusiness sector
Telecoms giant Alcatel is focusing on providing converged data and telephony services in an attempt to reinvent itself as an ebusiness provider.
Telecoms giant Alcatel is focusing on providing converged data and telephony services in an attempt to reinvent itself as an ebusiness provider.
The convergence technologies will open up a broader market to the company's reseller partners, according to Alcatel.
Richard Kirby, Europe, Middle East & Africa director of channel development for ebusiness networking at the telco, said: "We can now go to our reseller partners and allow them to develop their offerings from voice and data to high-order combined capabilities."
"We are building a portfolio of infrastructure products and applications to provide a good, solid ebusiness environment," he added.
Alcatel has a long list of channel partners from different backgrounds. "We have a combined reseller force made up of data and voice product resellers; we are trying to educate them to combine the two," said Kirby. "We have made a number of key acquisitions to develop IP switching infrastructure."
These acquisitions include Newbridge Networks and content management vendors such as Genysis.
The company is banking on its convergence and technical expertise, as well as its financial resources, to standardise what is currently a fragmented market area.
Resellers play an important role in this market, and Alcatel is ready for its resellers to become full partners in its convergence strategy. "We are looking to see our qualified business partners become convergence resellers," said Kirby.
He explained that Alcatel is providing the infrastructure, while software partners will provide the applications. "We are also partnering with software companies to improve our offering. For example, our voice and data infrastructures combined with IBM ecommerce applications makes a very strong proposition to the enterprise market," he said.
First published in Computer Reseller News