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Genie to save up to £20 million
over five years with IT platform outsourcing deal Contract
awarded to Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
28th February 2002
Genie, the mobile Internet business of mmO2, today announced
plans to streamline its technology operations by outsourcing
its global data platform function to IT and management consultancy
Telecom Media Networks*, an industry practice of the Cap Gemini
Ernst & Young Group. This will result in cost savings
of between £10 to £20 million over the next five years for
the mmO2 group.
Unifying Genie's operations under a single service level
agreement will offer improved responsiveness and great flexibility
and is in line with mmO2's commitment to manage the business
as one, thereby reducing costs and building economies of scale
across the group.
The global data platform involves the hosting of Genie's
mobile Internet data services. Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
will be responsible for and provide input into the new product
introduction process to help accelerate the roll out and operational
acceptance of these new services. Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
already supports elements of Genie's operations in the UK,
Ireland and the Netherlands.
In addition to implementing and running these systems, it
will also manage contracts with third parties relating to
software, hardware, hosting, network services, applications
and systems management. Genie will retain a senior operations
team to set strategy and retain control over all design of
the platform infrastructure. This team will be responsible
for working with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and liaise directly
with other strategic partners.
Jim Ryan, chief technical officer, Genie said: "The decision
to appoint Cap Gemini Ernst & Young to manage our platform
operations will help Genie maximise efficiencies. We are confident
that their operations management capabilities will help us
take the lead in delivering innovative data services across
our footprint."
Roger Fawcett, head of Telecom Media Networks in the UK and
Ireland said: "Quality of service to users is clearly key
to Genie's competitive success and is totally dependent on
the reliability and performance of the underlying IT systems.
We were able to prove to Genie that we can and will deliver
the outstanding service levels they require from those systems,
and deliver them at a cost-effective level and on a 24x7 basis.
We felt our ability to provide a full end to end solution
from Strategic Business Consulting to Network Management was
a key differentiator in the decision making process."
As well as running existing operations, Cap Gemini Ernst
& Young will also provide a 24x7 incident management service
providing technical and operations support and play an important
role in new systems development, systems enhancement and will
identify network security issues.
Services under the new contract will be based at a Cap Gemini
Ernst & Young secure data centre in South Bank, London.
-Ends-
* The legal entity which has been assigned for the project
is Cap Gemini Telecom Media & Networks UK Limited.
About the Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Group
The Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Group (www.cgey.com) is
one of the largest management and IT consulting firms in the
world. The company offers management and IT consulting services,
systems integration, and technology development, design and
outsourcing capabilities on a global scale to help businesses
continue to implement growth strategies and leverage technology
in the new economy. The organization employs about 56,500
people worldwide and reports 2001 global revenues of more
than 8.4 billion euros.
About Telecom Media Networks
Telecom Media Networks, an industry practice of the Cap Gemini
Ernst & Young Group, focuses on the consulting needs of
communications service providers worldwide.
It offers a balanced mix of business consulting and technology
implementation that enables communications service providers-both
traditional businesses and dotcoms-to thrive in the network
economy. Combining expert industry knowledge, strong partnerships,
an excellent set of tested solutions and R&D capability,
Telecom Media Networks is in the top tier of global consulting
and systems integration firms for the communications industry.
About Genie
Genie, the mobile Internet business of mmO2, is made up web
and WAP portals in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy,
Hong Kong, South Korea and a WAP portal in Malaysia. Globally,
Genie has attracted 5.8 million registered accounts to its
online portals.
In Asia, Genie acts as an application service provider (ASP)
and offers hosted secure access to enterprise applications
through an integrated customised portal.
Genie Mobile, Genie's mobile phone operation, is available
in the UK and the Netherlands (www.mobile.genie.co.uk/shop),
offering price competitive data-centric mobile phone packages.
As of end January 2002 Genie Mobile (UK) has attracted 234,000
high value customers.
About mmO2
mmO2 has 100% ownership of mobile network operators in four
countries: the UK (BT Cellnet), Germany (Viag Interkom), the
Netherlands (Telfort Mobiel), and Ireland (Digifone). Additionally
it has operations on the Isle of Man (Manx Telecom) and a
leading European mobile internet portal business, Genie.
mmO2 was the first company in the world to launch and rollout
a commercial GPRS (or 2.5G) network and has secured third
generation mobile telephony ("3G") licences in the UK, the
Netherlands, and Germany. mmO2 also expects to apply for a
3G licence in Ireland, where the licence competition was launched
on 18 December 2001.
mmO2 has approximately 17.25 million customers and over 15,000
employees, with revenues for the year ended 31 March 2001
of £3.2 billion. Data represented 12.8% of total service revenues
in the quarter ending December 31, 2001.
For further information, please contact:
At Cap Gemini Ernst & Young:
Emma Giles
Tel: 0870 904 5814
Email: emma.giles@cgey.com
At Genie:
Kevin Caruth, Genie
Tel: 07771 964 595
Email: kevin.caruth@genieinternet.com
Vanessa Wong,
Edelman PR Worldwide
Tel: 020 7344 1349
Email: vanessa.wong@edelman.com
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