In a move that will accelerate the transformation of African mobile communications and positively impact the speed of economic development across the African continent, Bharti Airtel Limited and IBM have announced the selection of IBM to manage the computing technology and services that power Bharti Airtel’s mobile communications network spanning 16 African countries. An agreement is expected to be finalized in the coming months of this year.

Under a completed agreement, IBM will deploy and manage 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 also deploy technologies that allow 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 and Managing Director, Bharti Airtel, said:  “We are delighted to extend our successful relationship with IBM in South Asia to Africa. This transformational business delivery model, which will be a first in Africa’s telecom industry, will bring enhanced efficiencies to our operations and help us deliver world-class mobile services to our customers. 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. ”

Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, IBM, said of the latest synergy:  “We see our strategic relationship with Bharti Airtel as a powerful example of building a smarter planet.  We have achieved great success together in India, and now we are bringing that model to Africa.  By building a 21st century telecommunications infrastructure for the continent – in effect, treating all of Africa as a system of systems – we expect to help spark transformation not just in communications but across all sectors of society – empowering businesses, governments and individual citizens to connect, innovate and achieve economic growth.”

In the deal, IBM will consolidate 16 different IT environments of Bharti Airtel’s African operations into an integrated IT system. 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 better 2G and 3G mobile services.