- Strategic partnership with startup company enhances Deutsche Telekom’s portfolio to exploit new areas of business
- Platform independent videoconferencing service launched in US, Europe to follow
- Key customer benefit is interoperability across providers and protocols
Deutsche Telekom today announced it has signed a strategic partnership agreement with California based startup company Blue Jeans Network. Under this agreement, both partners intend to go to market with a scalable, interoperable videoconferencing solution in Europe by the end of the year. After six months of successful field trials the Blue Jeans service has been officially launched in the US on June 29th. The videoconferencing solution enables companies of all sizes to initiate multi-party videoconferences in an extremely easy way - no matter whether they want to use smart phones, tablets or full-fledged HD room systems. Blue Jeans Network provides a bridging solution creating interoperability across providers and protocols. All that’s required is a video-enabled device with Internet access and a native client, like Skype. "Excellent customer experience is decisive. We, therefore, increasingly cooperate with innovative partners that enable us to bring superior experiences to our customers. The Blue Jeans Network videoconferencing solution is cloud based and scalable. It is easy to use and complementary to our existing video offerings. I am delighted that we are entering into this strategic partnership," said Edward Kozel, Deutsche Telekom Chief Technology and Innovation Officer. "We are very pleased to have signed an agreement with Deutsche Telekom. It is strong validation for our company and our service to have one of the largest service providers in the world as a partner. We have been very impressed by the Deutsche Telekom team who has gone to great lengths to help us mature, refine, and scale the service. We are excited to jointly bring our product to the European market later this year," said Krish Ramakrishnan, Blue Jeans Network Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. With this agreement, Deutsche Telekom underlines the strategy of diversifying its portfolio and accelerating time to market for innovative products and services through an easy partnering scheme. Deutsche Telekom is further seeking promising, innovative offerings developed by agile small and medium sized companies. Further information can be found at http://www.easy-to-partner.com.
About Deutsche Telekom AG Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with around 128 million mobile customers, 36 million fixed-network lines and approximately 17 million broadband lines (as of March 31, 2011). The Group provides products and services for the fixed network, mobile communications, the Internet and IPTV for consumers, and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in over 50 countries and has around 244,000 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenues of EUR 62.4 billion in the 2010 financial year - more than half of it outside Germany (as of December 31, 2010). About Blue Jeans Network At Blue Jeans Network, our mission is to make video communications as easy and pervasive as audio communications, enabling more effective collaboration at work, at home, and on the road. Our cloud-based conferencing service makes this possible by enabling customers to connect with each other seamlessly any time, anywhere, and from practically any device. The Blue Jeans Network extends high quality video communications beyond the traditional boundaries of specialized conference rooms and into the mainstream, allowing employees throughout an enterprise to interact more effectively with each other, and with their customers, partners, suppliers, family, and friends. Blue Jeans Network is a private company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. For more information go to http://www.bluejeans.com.