Nortel beats Motorola and Cisco to £2m Minerva contract

NEWS Nortel Networks has beaten Motorola and Cisco to a $2m contract to provide a new IP-based network to Minerva Managed Networks. Minerva has the Irish franchise for Galileo, a worldwide booking network for the travel industry. The first phase of the installation is due to be completed by the end of the year, with the second phase - the upgrading of the 450 agents around Ireland - taking place by summer 1999. Fran O'Reilly, sales and marketing manager at Minerva, explained that up until now the system was run using the X25 protocol and the move to IP was made "to deploy services centrally instead of individually". The deal will see Nortel providing Minerva with Bay Networks Access Stack Nodes, Advanced Remote Nodes, Remote Access Clams, a BayStack 450 and Nortel Networks Passports. O'Reilly added that the reason Nortel was selected over Cisco and Motorola was purely to do with its approach. He said: "They are involved in the project from start to finish." O'Reilly described Nortel as having supplied them with a "humdinger of a network", and stressed that services had been more important than the price. The networking giant has succeeded in winning the last 14 contracts it has bid for.