Device Arena

AT&T announced today that it has been selected by SCHOTT AG to be its global provider of advanced communications services. The five year agreement, worth approximately $14 million, calls for AT&T to provide, manage and maintain SCHOTT’s worldwide communications infrastructure and deliver advanced IT based applications and services to SCHOTT’s 17,300 employees.

AT&T will provide managed network services to SCHOTT and its subsidiaries at more than 90 locations in more than 40 countries. AT&T will deliver wide area networking and managed security solutions housed in AT&T Data Centers in Europe, Asia and the US.

The agreement will enable SCHOTT to better support its wide ranging customer base in such diverse industries as household appliances, pharmaceuticals, solar energy, electronics, optics and the automotive sector and deliver to them the advanced technology, specialty materials, components and systems it provides to enable their success.

SCHOTT will benefit from access to AT&T’s advanced global Internet Protocol (IP) network to deliver cost effective, consistent, secure and highly reliable services. The relationship will be supported by an AT&T global account management team headquartered in Germany that will work with SCHOTT to define strategy and provide contract governance, and by dedicated local AT&T teams in each global region.

Commenting on the agreement, Mr. Jan Reller, SCHOTT’s Global CIO highlighted some of the key challenges SCHOTT faced in defining its global networking strategy. “The main challenge with this global data center and networking project was to find a partner that could support SCHOTT with our key objectives to profitably enable our customers’ success by constantly challenging limits through innovations and entrepreneurship.”

Mr. Reller’s team’s mission is to support SCHOTT’s corporate strategy with state of the art communication infrastructure that ensures seamless communication and collaboration between internal teams and customers, across time zones and continents in a professional manner. “My team has to ensure that our business critical applications can be accessed any time anywhere with guaranteed performance indicators in an absolutely secure environment. AT&T is the right provider to support SCHOTT on a global basis to meet these objectives” he added. “SCHOTT’s IT staff can now focus on core application development and management which will further strengthen our market leading position”.

“We are delighted that SCHOTT has chosen AT&T as its leading global networking solutions provider,” said Joachim Kathmann, Sales Vice President, AT&T Germany. “We are committed to connecting SCHOTT’s worldwide employees, partners and suppliers, while delivering and managing the array of managed network services needed for SCHOTT to accelerate its business performance.”

AT&T