Bharti Airtel and IBM have announced that IBM will manage the computing technology and services that power Bharti Airtel’s mobile communications network spanning in 16 African countries.Â
According to the agreement, IBM will deploy and manage state-of-the-art information technology infrastructure and applications to support Bharti Airtel’s goal of bringing affordable and innovative mobile services to remote locations in Africa.  In addition, IBM will deploy advanced technologies created by IBM Research, including the Spoken Web – a voice-enabled Internet technology that allows users to access and share information simply by talking over an existing telephone. This is particularly compelling for populations with little or no literacy, visual impairments, or which lack access to PCs.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman & Managing Director, Bharti Airtel, said, "There are huge opportunities throughout Africa to transform how people communicate and how communities interact.  Delivering on that opportunity through affordable mobile communications for everyone is our focus. It will also offer career enhancement opportunities to Bharti Airtel’s employees in the IT domain who will now get exposure to global best practices and latest technologies with IBM."
Under the 10-year planned agreement, IBM will consolidate 16 different IT environments across Bharti Airtel’s African operations into an integrated IT system and will oversee the management of all of the applications, data center operations, servers, storage and desktop services. When the agreement becomes final, IBM will provide customer support applications that include customer relationship management, billing and self-care that will empower customers and assist Bharti Airtel in delivering innovative and convenient 2G and 3G mobile services.
