Effective today, SAP America's sales and marketing team will begin referring those companies whose annual revenues exceed US$200 million to AT&T for hosting services. By combining AT&T's global Internet Protocol (IP) network and hosting and applications services capabilities with SAP's global expertise in enterprise software, businesses will receive simplified, full-service solutions that will allow them to deliver critical applications to their end users.
"SAP is pleased to welcome AT&T as a new strategic SAP hosting partner," said Greg Tomb, president and CEO, SAP North America. "AT&T's reputation for high-quality enterprise services complements SAP's commitment to deliver sustainable and cost-effective solutions to our customers."
Today's announcement is the latest milestone in AT&T's overall efforts to provide world-class applications-management services and support to companies. It builds upon the expertise gained when AT&T acquired application service provider USinternetworking (USi) in October 2006. In 2007, the global application-management services market totaled more than US$25 billion, and it is expected to grow, according to IDC.
"SAP and AT&T will enable enterprise customers to virtualize their enterprise applications within a network so that they can be accessed anytime, anywhere their business needs them," said Ron Spears, group president, AT&T Global Business Services. "Applying the intelligence of today's networks to applications makes it possible for businesses to operate more successfully at a greater scale and velocity.
"We're delighted to be working with SAP — a world-class company in its own right in helping companies to achieve this goal," Spears said.
Today, AT&T serves its hosting and application services customers through its 38 Internet Data Centers located in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. To support its business for SAP solutions, AT&T has created, within its Global Business Services (GBS) unit, an SAP services practice that includes experts in dedicated sales, technical and applications-specific management.
As a certified SAP hosting partner, AT&T will offer a full portfolio of hosting services for SAP applications, including infrastructure, implementation, operation and ongoing support. In addition, AT&T will also be a provider of development hosting site services for testing, monitoring, training and development.
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