[London, ENGLAND] KPN Royal Dutch
Telecom
and Perot Systems Corporation
announced Monday the
formation of a new company which is intended to generate US$300 million in
revenues from
Internet, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and call center applications.
Strategically, the new venture will put together front-end applications and
customer service technology not only for KPN and its subsidiaries but also
for
other major European organizations.
Although the partners have not yet announced the name of the new venture,
they have revealed that it will be headquartered in Groningen in the
Netherlands,
will be staffed by more than 300 people and have two branch offices in other
parts of the country.
Paul Smits, chairman of KPN, said the alliance with Perot Systems would help
achieve the goal of providing the best services to KPN’s customer base. He
referred to Perot Systems’ mix of experience, technology and flexibility
which he said were needed to make this kind of relationship succeed.
Ross Perot, chairman of Perot Systems, spoke of KPN as “a visionary company”
and said the relationship would provide leading-edge self-service e-commerce
and wireless capabilities to the Dutch marketplace.
The two companies have issued ambitious projections for the new venture,
saying that the first year revenue is expected to be approximately US $50
million.
However, with KPN committed to purchasing at least US $90 million of services
over
the next three years, the figures should be achievable. Profits will be
divided
equally between the two parent companies.
KPN has many interests outside the Netherlands that can generate income
opportunities in West and Central Europe for the latest venture. In mobile
communications, KPN Mobile recently purchased the German operator E-Plus
and now has around 9 million European customers.
Texas-based Perot Systems operates worldwide and had 1999 revenues of
US $1.1 billion.
