The Hindu : Business : IBM bags $100 million deal from Bharti Airtel

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Friday, Aug 04, 2006

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Business

IBM bags $100 million deal from Bharti Airtel

The platform will deliver a suit of new services to 25 m customers

— PHOTO: S. Subramanium

GATEWAY TO NEXTGEN: General Manager, Global Technology Services, IBM Asia Pacific, Satish Khatu (centre), with Bharti Airtel President, Manoj Kohli (left), and Director, Marketing & Communications, Hemant Sachdev, at a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday. — PHOTO: S. Subramanium

NEW DELHI: Bharti will invest $100 million to deliver India's first "Service Delivery Platform'' (SDP) in partnership with IBM, Bharti-Airtel President Manoj Kohli said here on Thursday.

The platform would enable Bharti to deliver a suit of new services to its over 25 million customers, he said.

IBM, which had been managing the telecom network operations of Bharti Airtel for some time now, would develop, manage and operate the SDP for Airtel, Mr. Kohli said.

The SDP would enable Bharti to have an integrated environment that would incorporate all of Airtel's content and application services under one platform.

"The platform will be the gateway to next generation content services for our customers and help us consolidate our leadership position,'' Mr. Kohli said.

"The implementation will allow Bharti to offer enhanced spectrum of content and value-added services to its customers, enabling them to maintain their competitive advantage and leadership in the marketplace,'' IBM Asia Pacific Global Technology Services General Manager Satish Khatu said. — PTI

Content enhancement

UNI reports:

"The SDP is a recognised market leading global telecom framework, based on open standards and with proven implementations at telecom companies around the world. This will enhance the spectrum of content, application and services and its access possible through multiple channels including SMS, MMS, WAP, Web and broadband. Moreover, huge amount of personalisation would be possible,'' Mr. Kohli said. The content providers to Airtel should also benefit with the SDP by distributing it though multiple channels, Mr Kohli said, adding that they should be able to test new devices and content services prior to launch.

The subscribers would be able to avail themselves of the benefits of SDP after 9-10 months.

The SDP would enable small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as large enterprises to access a large pool of content through mobile, landline and broadband connections.

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