Amdocs Hooks Into SBC Outsourcing Pact

Amdocs Limited has sealed a major outsourcing agreement
with SBC Services, Inc., to provide a variety of billing, CRM and directory
solutions for the unit of the telecom giant.

The deal is a seven-year outsourcing contract that a company press release
says is “valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Amdocs will specifically be working to improve the SBC directory companies
over computer system performance. SBC publishes SBC SMART Yellow Pages in 13
states, subsidiaries of SBC Communications .

SBC’s stated goal is to maximize cost efficiencies and “transitioning of
those subsidiaries’ IT workforces to Amdocs,” the partners said in a press
release.

Amdocs will be focusing on providing a fully outsourced option for its
directory IT services, including day-to-day IT operations, applications
development and maintenance, help-desk services, end-user support,
implementation services, procurement, facilities and data center services.

Amdocs will customize the solution for SBC’s directory IT systems, based on
its ADS(NG) product line, and the outsourcing deal will cover SBC’s yellow
pages, white pages and electronic products

Amdocs specializes in billing, CRM and directory software solutions, and has
been negotiating this deal for several months, according to press reports.
As internetnews.com reported on December 13th, SBC will consolidate call
centers, but in its press release SBC gave no details on the number of
employees it will let go.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, SBC
Communications lowered its stake in Amdocs to 10.1 percent. SBC held 21.8
million Amdocs common shares after selling two million shares ealier this
year. Prior to that sale, SBC held a 11.1 percent stake. Earlier, SBC’s
stake in Amdocs was as large as 16.3 percent.

On Jan. 6, Reuters reported out of Jerusalem that Amdocs, the
Israeli-basede billing software and services provider “denied a report it
has begun airlifting employees in Israel to its headquarters in St. Louis
prior to a possible war in Iraq.”

Amdocs’ U.S. headquarters are based in Chesterfield, Missouri.