Deutsche Telekom in data pact with Microsoft, Compaq
By Gareth Vaughan, CBS MarketWatch
Last Update: 5:25 PM ET Feb 23, 2000
NewsWatch
HANNOVER, Germany (CBS.MW) -- Deutsche Telekom AG's cellular phone
unit T-Mobil, said Wednesday it's launching an alliance with Microsoft Corp.
and Compaq to deliver data over wireless phones.
The alliance, which was unveiled at the Cebit IT and
telecom trade fair, will use Microsoft's (MSFT: news,
msgs) software and Compaq's (CPQ: news, msgs)
computer hardware over T-Mobil's mobile
communication services, T-Mobil spokesman Philipp
Schindera, told CBS.MarketWatch.com.
He said that Deutsche Telekom (DT: news, msgs)
hopes to sign additional partners for the service which
will initially be available to corporate customers.
"They don't have to be big companies, they can be
smaller partners with big ideas," Schindera said.
Schindera spoke inside Deutsche Telekom's massive
Cebit site underneath an enormous version of the
company's trademark pink T symbol. Europe's
biggest telecom group has no fewer than 1,000 of its
150,000 staff attending the show.
With Cebit officially kicking off Wednesday, last
minute construction work was in full swing even
though the company's CEO, Ron Sommer, made his
headline Cebit visit Tuesday.
Sommer, unsurprisingly, told reporters that his company is on the look out
for acquisitions as Germany's former telecom monopoly tries to build its
foreign business. With the liberalization of the German telecom market in
recent years, some 100 domestic rivals have emerged.
Separately, T-Mobil said its sales revenue climbed to 9.8 billion German
marks in 1999 from 7.5 billion marks in 1998. The cellular phone operator,
which will rank second in Germany after Vodafone AirTouch PLC's (VOD:
news, msgs) completes its acquisition of Mannesmann AG, said its
customer base has risen by 3.8 million over the last 12 months to 9.8 million.
Gareth Vaughan is an online reporter for CBS MarketWatch.
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