Orange makes inroads

Orange Business Services (OBS) announced last month the signing of a number of agreements with prominent enterprises throughout the Middle East.

Managed service provider, Orange Business Services (OBS), has been having a busy time in the region of late with the announcement of significant regional deals, which according to the firm, goes to demonstrate its increasing focus on the Middle East.

"The agreements we have reached, and the quality of partners, clearly demonstrate the value we are bringing to the Middle East. It's in keeping with our strategy for the real estate and enterprise spaces and is all contributing to keeping our growth in the double digits we have been seeing," says Lionel Reina, vice president for Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa at OBS.

 

At the top of the recent list of big wins for the French company is its partnership with real estate giant Emaar in acting as the telecoms consultant for the King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) development in Saudi Arabia.

The managed services provider has been tasked with acting as a consultant on issues relating to telephony, IPTV and wireless connectivity.

Part of this will involve working to develop a single IP network that can support the demands for entertainment, information and business communications services while also connecting essential building services to a central network.

"These smart cities are proving not only more attractive to prospective tenants and occupiers but also offer lower costs in terms of maintenance and management of the basic services, whilst offering the potential to bring in additional non-rental revenues to developers," says Reina.

OBS has also signed an agreement with the Kuwait based, United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) to provide the organisation with a wide area network (WAN).

UASC is the largest ocean carrier of dry cargo to the Middle East and so requires scalable yet robust network capabilities. The network that OBS will provide them will consist of 28 remote sites including locations in North America, Europe and the Middle East. They will all be linked to the central datacentre in Singapore from where all mission critical applications will be accessed.

"We are very happy as this is a very large contract for us. This is worth a fair bit of revenue, but more than that, it is a continuation of a business where we have great experience through our European operations," explains Reina.

OBS is also expected to provide the shipping company with IP services, which allow internet access that does not compromise the corporate network, and at the same time, manages security effectively.