Sprint, IBM Combine on Network Services
Posted on: Saturday, 14 February 2004, 06:00 CST
Sprint Corp. and IBM last week announced a five-year, multibillion-dollar call center outsourcing deal and said they're also working together to offer Sprint's network services to corporate users.
For example, Sprint said it's investing about $100 million to adopt IBM's Service Provider Delivery Environment (SPDE) technology architecture, a set of products and services designed to help IT managers develop secure real-time mobile access to e-mail systems and other corporate applications. Sprint's adoption of SPDE will let the telecommunications carrier provide mobile data access via its Sprint PCS wireless network and its voice and data networks. The biggest market need is giving mobile users secure access to sales force automation applications, Sprint President Len Lauer said at a press briefing.
Sprint and IBM have been working on SPDE for several months and are deploying IBM middleware on a range of mobile devices at early adopter sites, said Terry Yu, vice president of product management and development at Sprint. Prior to the SPDE collaboration, the two companies worked with the Air Force Materiel Command's logistics center at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, to deploy Pocket PC devices for wireless access to e-mail and calendar functions [QuickLink 38340].
The $100 million investment in SPDE is small compared with the cost of Sprint's consumer call center outsourcing deal with IBM. But the SPDE plan is "strategically important" to Sprint in its battle with other carriers for corporate users, said Lisa Pierce, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. "This move will help them get into the largest companies," she said.
IBM will manage 22 Sprint call centers and the IT systems that support them as part of the agreement. Lauer said Sprint expects the deal to lower its customer service costs by $550 million over the next three years. * 44581
Copyright Computerworld Inc. Feb 9, 2004
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