Alcatel-Lucent Extends Its Channel Partner Reach In Brazil

Visiting Brazil earlier this year, Patricia Russo, Alcatel-Lucent CEO, described her vision for the French company, saying there is a need to recognize and respond to new corporate market dynamics and evolving information management technologies.

"Concepts such as Web 2.0, collaboration, and SOA (Service-oriented architecture) will be intensively used as a way to achieve market share in 2008," Russo said.

Despite challenges, the enterprise division of the company is getting results, growing nine percent in 2007, Russo said. To continue to see benefits in this area, the company has to stay aggressive to support a wide variety of technologies and trends, including disseminated broadband, application software offerings, advanced business models, the services portfolio, and IP transformations.

To help achieve these goals, Alcatel-Lucent in launching BiCS (Business integrated Communication Solution) communication platform, which supports up to 500 seats, and offers use and implementation simplicity, in addition to scalability, at a competitive price.

Alcatel-Lucent has also focused on the market for its Omniacess 700 routers family, offering models with 10, 40 and 80 ports. In addition, business activities in the communications and access infrastructure arena were reinforced in the mid-2007, when the company acquired NetDevices. "The high-capacity routers for data centers and big companies arrived in Brazil in March. The models designed for small companies are due at the end of 2008," said Juan Carlos Batre, enterprise products marketing director for Latin America. Sales estimates in Brazil, taking account of the product launches, are healthy. For 2008, Victor J. Agnellini, the company's president for Latin America and Caribbean, said Brazil can increase sales from 5 percent to 10 percent. "This year, the company anticipates IP telephony and the professional services will be growing businesses," he said, repeating the company's oft-cited mission to offer converged communications corporate solutions.

"The company has decentralized its management so that the region achieves autonomy," said Lourinaldo Silva, former Alcatel-Lucent enterprise division director in Brazil who is now a member of the board for Latin America and Caribbean. Silva emphasized that this change means a lot to the channel, as training formalization and certification has become more quick and viable, with its own budget.

The communications solutions manufacturer is also working to expand its channel partners group. The distributor Teeleap, well known for its work on the retail space, is now looking at the corporate market and working with Alcatel-Lucent. The partnership, which began with the goal of to providing routers and communications solutions to medium-sized companies, is now seeking to include more corporate channel partners.

"We're working now with 100 partners," said Andre Altieri, corporate business manager at Teeleap.