Absa, after a five-year partnership, has re-confirmed its commitment to Nortel Networks South Africa.
The partnership between the companies was established in 1997, and has seen the migration of Absa`s network from a traditional IBM System Network Architecture (SNA) based on the Synchronous Data Link Control protocol (SDLC), to a consolidated multi-services network. This gives Absa the capability of integrating and supporting different protocols and traffic requirements on a common backbone network.
At the same time, Absa is also re-confirming its belief in a single vendor strategy with regards to networking.
Says Hellmut Oellermann, Group Consultant: Telecommunications, Technology Strategy and Architecture at Absa: "We needed a flexible and responsive network solution that would allow Absa to focus on its core business - financial services - without being constrained by new bandwidth-hungry applications demanding constant network-related technology and capacity changes.
"Looking at the cost of ownership, functionality, skills development and technical support, this strategy has seen an amazing return on investment. It has also helped us control early adoption programmes without any interoperability problems."
The road ahead sees Nortel Networks rolling out an Internet Protocol (IP)-enabled Network to 900 Absa outlets countrywide which will enable multimedia services support across the entire network. This includes the roll-out of Nortel Networks campus technology, marking the convergence from Token Ring technology to Ethernet.
"Nortel Networks biggest strength is that the company fully understands our needs, and recognises the importance of high availability and service delivery to our business," he says. "We are able to carry policy-based multimedia services such as data, voice and even limited video applications over our network without it interfering with our core business."
Tony Wilson, Enterprise Director, Nortel Networks SA, says: "We are confident that our technology will provide Absa with a network to support and enhance their business."
Nortel Networks` commitment to its clients was confirmed at the New York City Analyst conference recently. James Parmelee, a managing director in technology equity research at Credit Suisse First Boston, said: "Nortel is focused on reducing its customers` capital and operating expenses while supporting a growing array of services and applications through network solutions as opposed to revolutionary point products. We believe Nortel is favourably positioned relative to other traditional systems integrators to deliver next-generation network architectures."
The Kintisheff Research Quarterly Review echoed this sentiment: "Nortel Networks is a company that at this moment enjoys a strong and diversified product portfolio, diversified customer base, much improved operating efficiency and smart international presence. Most other networking systems vendors have two of these virtues at best."
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