INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - APRIL - MAY 2007
The Month that was ...

AIRTEL TIES UP WITH NORTEL TO TAP SMALL & MEDIUM BUSINESS MARKET

AT BHARTI Airtel, small is truly beautiful. The company announced a big-bang tie-up with Nortel to evolve a combo of IT and telecom solutions for the fast expanding national SMB (small & medium business) space. Both companies will leverage their respective national distribution networks and ride on each other's distribution channels to offer SMBs a basket of solutions that pack the converged power of voice, data and security features. Also on the menu is a Bharti-Nortel joint developer program that will look at customisation of Nortel's SMB solutions for Bharti Airtel customers.

The announcements were made here by Bharti Airtel's president & CEO Manoj Kohli. "The tie-up with Nortel is part of Airtel's endeavour to foster a partner ecosystem for the gamut of hi-tech products for SMBs. We already have a similar partnership with Microsoft. The objective is to come up with a combo of IT and telecom solutions for the lucrative SMB space, especially, since SMBs have strong aspiration levels and technology is a known growth driver. Both Bharti and Nortel will also benefit from the depths of their respective national distribution networks and go-to-market strategies to penetrate the addressable national SMB market," said Mr. Kohli.

But Mr. Kohli declined to spell out the commercials or the revenue sharing pact between Bharti Airtel and Nortel. Much of the SMB solutions development work will transpire at Nortel's India and overseas facilities, but a distinct possibility is third-party development. This was indicated by Mr. Atul Bindal, president (broadband & telephone services) at Bharti Airtel, who was also in town. "Bharti and Nortel may look at third-party development under the joint developer program to evolve customised value-added solutions for the Indian SMB market," said Mr. Bindal.

Elaborating on the Bharti-Nortel pact, Mr. Bindal said: "Nortel could ideally provide the termination devices, which in this case could be VoIP (voice over IP) phones or video phones.