IBM and AT&T have announced a new partnership involving multiple collaborations to upgrade and expand on their respective technology services.
As part of this new alliance, IBM will modernize AT&T Business Solutions’ internal software applications to enable migrations to the IBM Cloud. IBM will also provide infrastructure to support AT&T Business’s applications. In turn, AT&T Business will utilize the open source platform that IBM acquired in its recent purchase of Red Hat to manage workloads and applications, with the goal of improving service to AT&T Business”™ enterprise customers.
IBM will also make AT&T Business its primary provider of software defined networking, with the goal of transforming IBM’s networking solutions AT&T technologies including 5G, Edge Compute, and IOT as well as multi-cloud capabilities using Red Hat. According to the companies, this will expand on the existing relationship where AT&T Business is IBM’s strategic global networking provider.
IBM will be the primary developer and cloud provider for AT&T Business’s operational applications and will help manage the AT&T Communications IT infrastructure, both on and off premises and across both public and private cloud platforms. The two companies will collaborate on edge computing platforms designed to help enterprise clients tap into 5G network speeds and the internet-connected devices and sensors at the edge of the network.
“Building on IBM’s 20-year relationship with AT&T, today’s agreement is another major step forward in delivering flexibility to AT&T Business so it can provide IBM and its customers with innovative services at a faster pace than ever before,” said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president for cloud and cognitive software at Armonk-based IBM.
“In AT&T Business, we’re constantly evolving to better serve business customers around the globe by securely connecting them to the digital capabilities they need,” said Thaddeus Arroyo, CEO of Dallas-headquartered AT&T Business. “This includes optimizing our core operations and modernizing our internal business applications to accelerate innovation.”
