2008

Paris, Nov. 24, 2008

 

 

Orange Business Services has enhanced its Business Together with Microsoft portfolio by making available as standard managed services the latest versions of the unified communication and collaboration offerings from Microsoft – Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – and supporting these services with ITIL ^® standards-based service management.

 

Business Together with Microsoft is an innovative solution that integrates collaborative offers into a single user interface in order to improve team efficiency. Since its May 2007 launch, Business Together with Microsoft has been deployed to 150,000 seats.

 

Orange Business Services differentiates its offer by providing ITIL ^® standards-based service management that achieves secure and reliable performance for an improved end-user experience and a 24/7 service desk to provide global support.

 

“Based on their impressive deployment numbers, Orange is experiencing strong customer adoption of Microsoft’s award-winning unified communications and collaboration solutions,” said Betsy Frost, General Manager Microsoft Unified Communications Marketing. “The enhancements announced today will only accelerate the traction of Orange’s managed services.”

 

Business Together with Microsoft benefits companies in the following ways:

-  enables global cooperative work and accelerates business processes;

- provides low cost-of-ownership and predictable cost per user;

- allows flexibility to change capacity and features according to evolving business needs;

- ensures highest service availability levels for end users backed by comprehensive SLAs.

 

“Multinationals are looking for a fully managed collaboration and messaging solution that can connect end users no matter where they are,” said Laurent Kocher, senior vice president, Global Services, Orange Business Services. “As a global Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Orange brings more than 15 years experience serving more than one million users.”

 

ITIL ^® is a Registered Trade Mark, and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

 

Orange is the key brand of France Telecom, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators. France Telecom serves more than 177 million customers in five continents as of September 30, 2008, of which two-thirds are Orange customers. The Group had consolidated sales of 52.9 billion euros in 2007 and 39.9 billion euros for the nine first months of 2008. As of September 30, 2008, the Group had 117.6 million mobile customers and 12.4 million broadband Internet (ADSL) customers.

 

Launched in June 2005, the NExT program (New Experience in Telecommunications) will enable the Group to pursue its transformation as an integrated operator and make France Telecom the benchmark for new telecommunications services in Europe. In 2006, Orange became the Group's single brand for Internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the company operates, and Orange Business Services the banner for services offered to businesses worldwide. France Telecom is the number three mobile operator and the number one provider of broadband Internet services in Europe and one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.

 

France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on Euronext Paris (compartiment A) and on the New York Stock Exchange.