Siebel, AT&T Join Forces on Managed Services

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Business software maker Siebel Systems forged a strategic alliance with AT&T Tuesday, wedding its eBusiness applications software with
AT&T’s managed services in order to deliver end-to-end managed services for mission critical applications.

The two partners said their alliance will allow them to bring AT&T’s
portfolio of managed services — including hosting, business continuity and
storage services — to bear with Siebel’s line of customer relationship
management (CRM) applications software and business processes. They will
market and sell complementary services, initially targeting U.S. business
customers and U.S.-based multi-national enterprises.

“The most compelling aspect of this alliance is that it brings together two
leaders in the business applications and networking/managed services spaces
to design and deliver complete, high performance solutions for companies
who are implementing mission critical applications,” said Rob Rich
executive vice president with research firm The Yankee Group.

“Leveraging
the strengths of the companies, the combined offering should lower
customers’ total cost of ownership, improve application performance and
increase customer satisfaction. Finally, the alliance underscores the
importance of high performance networking for companies who are deploying
mission critical applications across their extended enterprise networks.”

One of the first goals of the alliance is to perform a “network
optimization analysis” for customers implementing Siebel’s software, using
AT&T networking expertise to model Siebel eBusiness Applications over the
wide area network. This, the partners said, will allow them to ensure that
customers design their networking infrastructure to optimize their network
performance for Siebel’s applications across a globally distributed
customer solution.

The partners are also creating a “center of excellence,” where they aim to
demonstrate the benefits of end-to-end managed solutions with mission
critical applications.

The step is a first for both companies. Mark Armenante, group vice
president of alliances for Siebel, said “AT&T is the first major global
communications services provider in Siebel Systems’ alliances program to
provide enterprise networking, hosting and application performance
solutions.”

Meanwhile, AT&T’s Steve Edwards, vice president of Indirect Sales and
Channel Development for AT&T Business, noted that the deal marks AT&T’s
first relationship with a global ISV at this level of involvement.

“Through this unique alliance, we continue to broaden our capabilities in
delivering end-to-end solutions to meet the needs of companies who operate
in a real-time environment,” Edwards said. He added, “Our relationship with
Siebel is another key step in our efforts to work with the strongest
allies, to incorporate even greater value in our offers and better serve
our customers.”