Extending a relationship that stretches to 1999, AT&T said it
will continue providing networking services for Siemens
under a four-year, $174 million contract renewal.
AT&T is Siemens’ primary networking services provider in North and South
America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and parts of Europe, running
an IP
“This deal confirms our ability to serve the needs of global multinational
customers — a key pillar of our strategy,” said AT&T spokesman H. Gordon
Diamond, who noted that there were at least four other bidders for Siemens’
business.
Siemens, based in Munich, Germany, is a major manufacturer of electronics
and IT components. The company has 430,000 employees and customers in 190
countries.
For Bedminster, N.J.-based AT&T, the renewal represents the kind of deals it
covets — long-term managed network services for enterprise customers — as
it looks to offset sliding long-distance revenues.
In other AT&T news, the company said it opened a new Internet Data Center
(IDC) in Singapore to enhance its ability to offer business services in
Southeast Asia. It’s the sixth IDC in the Asia-Pacific region and the
company’s 26th overall.
The new IDC is designed to provide flexible hosting services, including
security, storage, content distribution, disaster recovery and
load-balancing options with VPN and data-networking integration.
The new Singapore IDC is linked to the other five Asia-Pacific IDCs, located
in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney and the United States to provide
customers with comprehensive redundancy options.
Finally, AT&T CFO Thomas Horton told analysts at the Credit Suisse First
Boston conference that the company will beat its 2004 earnings goal of $4.8
billion, according to a Reuters report. Cost-cutting efforts are also ahead
of schedule, he said.