IBM and Bharti Airtel announced the completion of contract negotiations for technology services spanning 16 African countries. As part of the 10-year agreement signed in December 2010, IBM will deploy and manage the information technology (IT) infrastructure and applications to support Airtel's goal of providing affordable and innovative mobile services throughout Africa, the world's fastest growing mobile market. IBM will consolidate and transform the 16 different IT environments across Airtel's African operations into an integrated IT system, and will oversee the management of all applications, data center operations, servers, storage and desktop services. IBM will deploy technologies, processes and best practices to enable Airtel to offer superior customer experience. The agreement calls for IBM to provide customer support applications that include customer relationship management, billing, and self-service that will empower customers and assist Airtel in delivering innovative and convenient 2G and 3G mobile services. In addition, IBM plans to deploy a powerful media management system to offer content such as music and video over mobile devices, while simultaneously facilitating the growth of the application developer community in Africa, which will enable Airtel to tap new sources of revenue.
