Intel Capital has acquired a $16 million stake in Grisoft, a developer of anti-virus security software based in Brno, the Czech Republic.
Grisoft security products are currently used on more than 25 million computers. Intel Capital will also help Grisoft to reach new customers and market segments as well as optimize their security software. http://www.grisoft.com http://www.intel.com/capital
France Telecom CEO Didier Lombard introduced a new management team to accelerate the implementation of the company's NExT program.
Four functions are created around the Chief Executive Officer to drive the implementation of NExT and ensure its success:
NExT Financial Balance and Value Creation, headed by Michel Combes, will ensure that the Group meets its commitments in terms of financial targets and value creation;
NExT Strategic Marketing, headed by Georges Penalver, will create Group-wide strategic marketing, supported by a " Technocentre ", ensuring speed and consistency in the development of convergent offers;
NExT Transformation, headed by Louis-Pierre Wenes, will guarantee the progress and coherence of all essential transformation programs for the operational success of NExT, and ensure that the objectives are met within the defined timeframe;
NExT Human Resources and Skills, headed by Olivier Barberot, will drive development and evolution of the skills of employees and management, in particular with the "ACT" program: Anticipation, Competence for Transformation.
To reinforce the Group's internationalization, two new teams will report to Didier Lombard.
International Strategy Development, led by Sanjiv Ahuja, will focus on analyzing opportunities for international development and monitoring the internationalization of the Group's organization, culture and environment.
Group Globalization and Cohesiveness, led by Michel Davancens, will aim to identify new talents throughout the Group, and accelerate best practice exchange between all Group entities.
http://www.francetelecom.com
In June 2005, France Telecom's NExT (New Experience in Telecom services)) is a three-year initiative that will leverage both its legacy brands (France Telecom, TP, etc.) and Orange, provide customers with a personalized portal for all their communications, introduce new services, and integrate all of the company's networks under a single management system. The company will use the Orange brand for its mobile, broadband and enterprise services globally.
With the move to converged services, France Telecom will adopt a number of flat-rate pricing plans with unlimited on-network communications. These include the launch next month of a "Family Talk" service with unlimited, 24/7 communication between a family's fixed and mobile devices for EUR 39 per month, and "LiveCom," a software application integrating voice, videotelephony and instant messaging between fixed-line terminals, mobiles and videophones. A "HomeZone" service is expected to launch in 2006, bridging mobile and broadband services. The "MaLigne" TV-over-DSL service, which has been available in France since late 2003, will be rolled out in the UK, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland by mid-2006.
The Principality of Asturias, Spain selected Alcatel as the turnkey integrator on an FTTU project valued at EUR 19 million. Alcatel will take charge of the network's design and planning, as well as for its deployment, service roll out and maintenance, on behalf of the Asturias' local authority.
Alcatel will also supply its 7450 Ethernet Service Switch - ESS - to ensure interconnection between the multiple networks, and to provide the various network operators within this northern Spanish region with the flexibility required to differentiate service types. The Alcatel 7450 ESS will also provide cost-effective broadband aggregation which will help optimize capacity in the FTTH network. http://www.alcatel.com
The Iliad Group, a leading ADSL operator in France with 1.3 million subscribers, will acquire Altitude Telecom for an undisclosed sum.
Altitude Telecom owns the only national WiMAX (3.5 GHz) granted by ARCEP, the national French Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.
Under the deal, Iliad will acquire Altitude's residential and WiMAX activities. Altitude Developpement, which is majority owned by Mr. Jean-Paul Riviere, will continue to pursue the enterprise and government contract activities previously operated within Altitude Telecom. http://www.iliad.fr/http://www.altitudetelecom.fr
Altitude Telecom, which holds a license to operate in the 3.5GHz band throughout France, has deployed 802.16d-compliant WiMAX equipment using Alvarion's BreezeMAX platform.
Altitude Telecom has deployed Cirpack's Class-5 switches to launch telephony services over WiMAX for businesses.
Telcordia has appointed Daniel J. Carroll as its new President and CEO, replacing Matthew J. Desch, who will serve the company as Non-Executive Chairman. Most recently, Carroll was Chief Operating Officer of the Business Communications Services Division at Lucent Technologies, where he was responsible for a $7 billion global business that provided telecommunications systems to large and small business enterprises. Carroll, a professional engineer who played an instrumental role in the development of the first VOIP switch for the Lucent division that later became Avaya, spent 35 years with the AT&T, Western Electric and the Lucent family of companies. http://www.telcordia.com
In March 2005, Providence Equity Partners and Warburg Pincus completed their acquisition of Telcordia Technologies from Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The two firms are co-equal partners in the deal; further terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Telcordia, based in Piscataway, N.J., is a leading global provider of telecommunications software and services. The company's solutions handle the complex tasks required to develop, maintain, monitor and fix today's carrier networks.
Telcordia was previously known as Bellcore prior to is acquisition by SAIC from the Regional Bell Operating Companies in 1997.
France Telecom has implemented Virtual Private LAN Service with Traffic Engineering (VPLS-TE) capability in its network, enabling it to set and tune any specific bandwidth per each end user site per application, while utilizing guaranteed pre-provisioned -- yet flexibly controlled -- core bandwidth resources.
The VPLS-TE capability is based on a co-developed algorithm by France Telecom and Atrica that adds carrier-class traffic engineering attributes to standard VPLS capabilities to deliver carrier-class, traffic engineered E-LAN services with hard Service Level Agreements (SLAs) per application. VPLS-TE will enable France Telecom to guarantee to its clients performance-based solutions for LAN-to-LAN connectivity.
The bandwidth-guaranteed, flexible VPLS-TE service offered by the jointly developed VPLS-TE capability incorporates ingress and egress policing at every point and direction, operator-configurable ingress and egress bandwidth per site per application, and operator-configurable core bandwidth. Its broadcast policing capability allows carriers to control broadcast traffic, further optimizing the performance of the network.
Atrica said standard VPLS-based solutions defined by the IETF are best effort services that don't allow carriers to guarantee SLAs or Quality of Service (QoS). These VPNs specify only full mesh, any-to-any connectivity, offering little to no flexibility in connectivity models. In contrast, Atrica's bandwidth-conditioned VPLS-TE delivers guaranteed SLAs and hard QoS with sub-50ms service protection and is user-configurable, based on different traffic patterns. This flexible connectivity model allows a carrier to define how much bandwidth they want to reserve for the core, and how much should be reserved for specific VPNs, which can significantly improve bandwidth optimization and support their own unique revenue models.
"To meet our customers' growing demands for flexible LAN-to-LAN connectivity for advanced, bandwidth-intensive real-time multimedia services, it is critical that we are able to control and configure the amount of bandwidth reserved per each site participating in the same E-LAN service. We must also be able to control the amount of bandwidth that is being allocated to that specific E-LAN in the core of the network, while delivering hard QoS and bandwidth guarantees per site and per application," said Alain Vellard, director of research and development on access networks for France Telecom. http://www.atrica.com
NDS, Blockbuster Digital Entertainment, set-top box (STB) supplier ADB and VOD solutions provider Bitband are showcasing an end-to-end platform for broadcast operators to support the secure delivery of thousands of hours of content on-demand over integrated broadcast/IP set-tops.
The new "xSpace" is a VOD solution designed for broadcast operators deploying hybrid STBs with broadband connectivity. It features the Blockbuster-branded on-demand portal and premium content integrated into the operator's electronic program guide (EPG) and back office systems. NDS's VideoGuard conditional access system provides the security and the business packaging of on-demand content and, utilizing XTV-based STBs, enables the recording of IP content to disk.
"The integrated vision of broadcast and IP has a strong value proposition for satellite operators" commented Gadi Tirosh, NDS's VP of Product Marketing, "We are pleased to present, along with our partners, a first-to-market solution that truly addresses the need of pay-TV operators."
YES, Israel's pay-TV satellite operator will be the first operator to deploy a VOD solution based on the xSpace system, anticipated during 2006. http://www.nds.com http://www.bitband.com
