At the ongoing CES 2015, Cisco and leading Belgian telecommunications and IT services provider Proximus announced that they have consolidated their partnership to drive joint innovation and business development. The renewed partnership is expected to enable Proximus to provide its customers with faster, tailored and innovative services, while Cisco is expected to benefit from Proximus' technology research and local go-to-market expertise.
The two companies will focus on three growth areas - i. Next-generation video delivery for consumers, ii. Smart city services for government organizations and iii. Service orchestration for business-to-business customers.
Proximus which already has a very successful mass market video offer through traditional digital TV set top boxes, will be leveraging on centralized digital TV functionality on Proximus' open cloud architecture instead of the consumer's digital video recorder (DVR) to accelerate delivery of new personalized video capabilities. Both companies will accelerate the development of smart and connected cities (S+CC) business models that both monetize coverage and improve life for consumers and income for businesses. According to Cisco, with its network service orchestration technology, Proximus customers would be able to configure their network services online.
Dominique Leroy, CEO, Proximus
This long term agreement not only reinforces our existing cooperation, it also shows Proximus' commitment to innovation and improving customer service. We want to build a future that will benefit our customers, our employees, our shareholders and our partners. That transformation strategy will help us return to growth.
John Chambers, chairman and CEO, Cisco
As the leading service provider in Belgium and Luxembourg, Proximus has an extensive innovation track record. Proximus sees the benefits of transforming networks to a software-based, agile platform. We are expanding our collaboration to embrace the benefits of the Internet of Everything (IoE) with cloud-based video solutions, virtualized managed services solutions and much more. Together with Proximus, we will co-develop a transformation roadmap towards more agile and cost efficient infrastructure that can sustainably cope with growth in volumes, rightsizing of operational resource and changes in skills and competencies.
