Orange Offers EDS Service

LONDON -- Orange today announced it has signed an agreement with global services leader, EDS, to offer a set of managed mobility solutions to enterprise customers. The two companies also announced they will be jointly delivering the EDS Extended Connected Office (ECO) service, which brings the benefits of the secure, desktop environment to any mobile data device with reduced risk and at a fixed monthly rate per user. The fixed cost per user will cover the handset, service and data usage. ECO provides customers with a secure solution that is rapid to deploy on all mobile devices and handsets.

The ECO solution connects mobile and remote workers seamlessly through the corporate firewall to access data, enterprise applications, personal information and collaboration services. The big differentiator of ECO is that it reduces the risk associated with developing mobile solutions, as companies can take advantage of a fully managed end-to-end service. This means that everything from device management through to mobile access can be managed using ECO.

Orange and EDS have additionally formed a Wireless Centre of Excellence, consisting of joint virtual teams, which will be critical to delivering and implementing ECO to enterprise customers. The Centre will be instrumental in offering ECO to both existing Orange and EDS customers as well as new enterprise clients.

The ECO solution leverages EDS’ agile infrastructure model and experience of managing 3.3 million desktops for global business and brings the same range of enterprise applications, high availability and security offered through a managed desktop environment to any mobile data device. It is offered at a fixed cost per user, allowing customers to plan and budget more effectively as it is in a controlled and predictable pricing environment.

ECO will help many existing enterprise customers to move beyond fixed and mobile voice communications and take advantage of a range of mobile data applications used in the office environment.

“ECO has created a true mobile extension of the enterprise that moves the managed environment from the desktop into the wireless world, but still maintains the consistency, stability and security of enterprise-wide systems,” said Bill Crawford, Global Offering Executive, EDS Mobility Services. “The benefits of managed mobility services provided by ECO can be measured in hard numbers with reduced cost of ownership and managed risk, as well as the soft benefits of improved productivity and increased collaboration enabled by linking remote and mobile workforces around the world.”

“This is the first time that a systems integrator has joined forces with a mobile communications provider globally to help businesses reduce the risks associated with developing applications for the mobile enterprise,” says Richard Hanscott, vice-president, Business Solutions at Orange. “We believe that the reliability of the Orange network, coupled with EDS’s experience in developing secure applications to multinational customers, will provide us with a strategic advantage to help businesses migrate more effectively and confidently to a wirefree world.”

Eric Goodness, principal analyst at Gartner Research, says: “Our research shows that the enterprises are looking to the marketplace to not only identify mobility solutions but also to manage all aspects of negotiation, integration and operations. For vendors to be successful in the mobility space, they must be able to frame pragmatic solutions according to the enterprises' unique requirements for cost containment, performance and flexibility.”

EDS pilot users have already experienced a productivity gain of two hours per working day. Orange has started to roll-out ECO internally and is currently in discussions with early adopter companies.

Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS)

Orange SA