2007

Paris, July 9, 2007

 

 

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT), one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world, has extended its relationship with Orange Business Services by signing a six-year global agreement to service hotel properties in 80 countries across the globe.

 

A customer for the past ten years, Starwood significantly expanded its partnership with Orange Business Services by integrating its 120 newly acquired Le Méridien properties into its MPLS IP VPN. In addition, Orange Business Services is now providing managed services, including messaging, data center hosting and application hosting, allowing Starwood to keep their focus on the core business of luxury and upscale hotels and resorts.

 

Starwood maintains a leadership position in markets worldwide based on its superior global distribution, coupled with strong brands and brand recognition. Its focus on enhancing and streamlining their environment resulted in moving a data center from their premises in Brussels to an Orange facility in London and also setting up a data center in Singapore in an Orange facility.  Orange Business Services also manages the infrastructure and environment for critical business applications for Starwood, including financial, sales and catering data. The global network infrastructure supports their reservation systems, e-mail and internal corporate traffic.

 

 

Following a messaging assessment performed by professional services consultants, Starwood opted for Orange’s Messaging Protection Suite (MPS) for their 45,000 users. MPS is a fully redundant, managed messaging solution, including anti-spam, anti-virus and content filtering services for inbound and outbound e-mails. The messaging assessment prompted a switch to the best practice approach for messaging hygiene services – a cloud-based perimeter service actively managed by dedicated experts. In addition to the noticeably improved messaging filtering, Starwood recognized a reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by migrating to an outsourced solution.

 

“Our expanded relationship with Starwood is a perfect example of how multinational companies can reduce their overall communications spend, while improving productivity, security and efficiency by switching to managed services,” said Diana Leonard, senior vice president of the Americas, Orange Business Services. “We are thrilled that Starwood has confirmed its confidence in us with this expanded contract.”

 

 

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT) is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with approximately 870 properties in more than 95 countries and 145,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. Starwood(R) Hotels is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchisor of hotels and resorts with the following internationally renowned brands: St. Regis(R), The Luxury Collection(R), Sheraton(R), Westin(R), Four Points(R) by Sheraton, W(R), Le Méridien(R) and the recently announced Aloft(SM). Starwood Hotels also owns Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., one of the premier developers and operators of high quality vacation interval ownership resorts. For more information, please visit www.starwoodhotels.com.

 

 

Orange Business Services represents the business communications solutions and services provided by the France Telecom Group as of June 1, 2006. They were previously sold under the France Telecom, Orange, Equant, Etrali, Almerys, EGT, Expertel Consulting, France Telecom Intelmatique, SETIB and Solicia brands.

 

The offers include converged voice, data and mobile services as well as IT expertise and managed services, all designed to transform business processes and improve productivity. Orange Business Services is present in 166 countries and territories and serves customers in 220.