Cable & Wireless Plc and IBM have teamed up to provide multinational companies with a migration service from SNA to IP over frame relay, as a first step toward jointly providing e- business services and to woo larger companies over to IP for its legacy applications. The service, called Cable &Wireless SNA Connect, will set out to build Fortune 1000 enterprise confidence in the companies’ ability to deliver services, said Jack Baney, IBM’s Director of Global Business Partner Program. The two companies will then branch out into providing value added e-business services such as web hosting, call centers and transaction services. C&W and IBM have been in discussions over drawing up the Connect offering since September 1997 and the non-exclusive deal will compete with Sprint Corp, which announced a similar service in May using IBM’s networking consulting services and products IBM will provide hardware and integration expertise and service delivery warranties from its Global Services and Network Hardware divisions. Cable & Wireless will add the network as well as its own SNA experience. Connect will use frame relay access devices, such as IBM’s new Access Utility range, released in September, and routers to encapsulate a corporation’s SNA traffic in frame relay so that it can run over public rather than more expensive leased lines. Other IBM products to be used in the transfer to IP include the TN1 server, released in August (NBD 08/04/98), said Steven Monti, Program Manager at IBM’s Networking Hardware Division. The aim is to move the applications to an IP-VPN, said Dean. There is also a possibility of providing a similar service to an ATM network. C&W hopes to compete on the basis of its geographical reach, according to Kevin Dean, C&W Global Markets head of IT Sector New Business Development. The target market, initially, for Connect is multinational shipping companies and institutional investors. The profile C&W is targeting is very high data users with a distributed access network, aimed specifically at the high SNA- usage AS/400 and 3745 customers. According to C&W the potential market for Connect will grow from $560m, currently, to $1.37bn by 2000. Connect is currently in beta testing and should be commercially available in January 1999.
