LONDON, UK - February 26, 2001 - Cisco Systems, Inc. the world wide leader in networking for the Internet, and IBM today announced that they will work together to provide market leading optical solutions to European service providers including cable providers, wireless operators, telcos and other internet service providers. Building on their existing strategic alliance Cisco and IBM, a Cisco Gold Partner, will combine their strengths in technology leadership and infrastructure services to deliver optical broadband networking solutions that will help satisfy demand for greater Internet bandwidth capabilities in the European marketplace.
By combining Cisco's leadership in IP routing, optical networking technology and content/services intelligence, together with IBM's world leading systems integration, network management and IT infrastructure services strengths, customers will benefit from increased bandwidth across the metro, edge, and core, enabling them to deliver the next generation of profitable IP services. IBM and Cisco will jointly market this integrated offering to European service providers.
"The collaboration between IBM and Cisco enables our customers to benefit from the most advanced and reliable solutions in today's market, as we deliver all of the elements for next generation IP+Optical networks," said Sameer Padhye, Vice President, Service Provider Solutions & Technologies Cisco Systems EMEA. "While the market tends to offer IP or optical solutions separately, Cisco and IBM are combining their expertise to integrate the two technologies for service providers who wish to grow their services and revenues."
"There is tremendous demand both at the provider and the end-user level, to dramatically upgrade the bandwidth capabilities of today's Internet technology, " said Andrea Pontremoli, General Manager Integrated Technology Services IBM Global Services EMEA. "This requires a comprehensive IT infrastructure combining the best of the emerging optical technology with the best of today's infrastructure services skills. Cisco and IBM bring these two critical elements to the table."
IBM is a Cisco Gold Partner, offering global systems integration, support and network management solutions for Cisco's end-to-end network technology. The collaboration will enable customers to rapidly deploy Cisco's IP & Optical core, which offers the highest scalability and performance core packet switches in the industry today, with IBM's network management solutions supporting competitive business services across the broadband platform.
