AT&T, Cisco Expand Joint Marketing

BEDMINSTER, N.J. -- AT&T (NYSE: T) and Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) today announced a significant expansion of their current United States market alliance to include Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The companies will align their EMEA marketing and sales forces to enhance delivery of AT&T's leading portfolio of global enterprise networking solutions that use Cisco technology and will collaborate to advance product and technology planning.

Today's announcement builds upon the U.S. alliance announced by the two companies in February and represents Cisco's first expansion of a U.S. domestic service provider market alliance internationally. Since February, co-operation between the two companies in the U.S. has contributed to AT&T concluding dozens of signed contracts and building a growing worldwide roster of customer opportunities.

"Cisco and AT&T have an established relationship with a proven track record of delivering real benefits to multinational companies," said Bill Archer, president of AT&T in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "By extending our agreement to EMEA, and approaching customers with the benefits of the alliance, we are making it easier for customers to choose a total solution to their networking needs based on AT&T and Cisco's products."

"Enterprises worldwide understand the productivity benefits Internet applications bring therefore they are investing in infrastructure and services that support them," said Rob Lloyd, president Cisco EMEA. "AT&T and Cisco have very strong reputations for product excellence, customer satisfaction and service delivery and a long, solid track record of working together. Their combined strengths and global reach make for a strong business relationship in Europe Middle East and Africa."

AT&T and Cisco will work together through their EMEA direct sales force to develop joint marketing programs that support the delivery of end-to-end managed services to enterprise and multinational companies. These services will include the AT&T Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IP VPN) suite of services, AT&T Global Managed Internet Services, Managed Security Services and Hosting services.

Both companies aim to offer customers incremental value through combining their resources. Commenting on the drivers in the market that both AT&T and Cisco have recognised in extending this agreement to the EMEA region, Dr. Henning Dransfeld, senior analyst at Ovum, a leading analyst and consulting firm, said:

"Today, an increasing number of Fortune 5000 customers are stepping away from managing their WAN. It is not only pressure to reduce operating costs that force corporate customers to consider outsourcing their network requirements. Many are waking up to the fact that they do not even have a good handle on their global networking cost base since it has become very complex to manage, monitor and account for. Multinational corporations expect operators to enable the seamless connection of geographically diverse branch offices and structurally different corporate networks."

AT&T Corp.

Cisco Systems Inc.