IBM Corp has clearly decided to keep both British Telecommunications Plc’s Syncordia Corp and the France Telecom-Deutsche Bundespost Telekom Eunetcom telecommunications facilities management joint venture, and to keep them both honest, it has given some of its business to each. The deal with Syncordia was announced some 15 months ago, and yesterday, Eunetcom announced IBM as its first customer, with a contract to provide services for p? of its European network. The contract involves transmission services at 40 IBM sites in France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Netherlands and here in the UK; a Eunetcom project management group is to be seconded to IBM; the deal is worth millions of dollars. Meantime the Deutsche Bundespost telekom yesterday promised jam tomorrow to its hard-pressed business subscribers, saying that it will reduce its charges by 20% by 1998, the federal post minister Wolfgang Boetsch announced. Exact details of the timing and nature of the cuts had yet to be worked out, and the size of the first cut due on April 1 1995 was still in dispute, he said, but the 20% was needed by the time Europe deregulates in 1998.
