Deutsche Telekom has launched its new SME initiative. The aim is to offer medium-sized companies a customized range of IT and telecommunication services sourced in Germany. The program is based on a new integrated product portfolio and the pooling of partner activities in the fields of IT and cloud, M2M, fixed and mobile networks under one roof.
"We want a reliable innovation partner for our customers," explains Dirk Backofen, head of marketing business customers. "This applies to our telecommunications services, but especially for IT and cloud services. The aim of the SME initiative is for companies in Germany to be offered a reliable package. The mid-sized business is the strong pillar of the German economy for us. We want to take them on a journey into the digital cloud and the IT world."
In order to reduce the complexity for customers DT will take end-to-end responsibility for the solutions, providing operations, services and billing.
An important component of the initiative is the increased provision of integrated products and cloud solutions. New cloud offerings are for example the DeutschlandLAN telephone systems from the network based on Swyx or Lync, "Managed Workplace", which offers hosted desktops from the private cloud, and a social enterprise network to easily and professionally cooperate with customers.
Larger SMEs can get a "secure data centre network". Here, companies link their data centres based on Ethernet Connect with speeds of up to 10 Gbit /s.
Deutsche Telekom will provide its partner activities under the "Affiliate Mittelstand". The three-step program consists of different models with different performances. The target group is, for example, systems integrators, software vendors and start-ups. "Both the customers and our partners benefit," it says. "Companies get innovative products and solutions. The partners open up new market potential and receive products that they can sell for the first time as IT resellers under their own brand without making large investments."
First offers for IT reselling are the DeutschlandLAN telephone systems from the network based on Swyx or Lync and the product vCloud, based on VMware. First new partners are the companies ISEC7 spirit/21, Unilab, Synergy Systems and DMRZ. It is expected that this will reach around 30 partners by the end of 2014.