Orange Business Services is upping the ante of its integrated network and IT enterprise services ambitions by acquiring French-based communications solutions integrator Alsy.
Already distributing Microsoft's standard online services offer in 21 countries, Orange's acquisition of Alsy makes strategic sense.
As one of the dominant Microsoft integrators in France, Alsy reported $17.8 million in revenues in 2009 and a staff of 140 employees. Alsy primarily targets large French and France-based international businesses.
"This acquisition is part of our strategy to develop our service activities around Microsoft solutions both in France and internationally," said Paul Molinier, Senior Vice President Integrated Services at Orange Business Services. "It also confirms our position as the leading player in the market for unified communications and collaborative applications. The excellent quality of the services offered by Alsy brings genuine added value to our offer."
Another benefit of the Alsy acquisition is that it will add even more capabilities to Orange's cloud computing strategy. Initially offering its IT Plan (desktop virtualization) and Flexible Computing (hosted virtualized infrastructure), Orange plans to launch a "dozen of new cloud computing services in the coming 24 months," covering six areas including real-time applications, collaboration, security, infrastructure, cloud-ready networking and vertical solutions for specific industries.
For more:
- see the release here
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