By David Meyer, 24 April 2007 15:47
NEWS
BT has announced a major internal reorganisation aimed at making it easier for the company to develop and roll out web-based services.
Two new business units have been formed in the reorganisation. BT Design will be responsible for designing and developing new services that can be deployed over the 21st Century Network (21CN) - the new national broadband infrastructure that BT is implementing. BT Operate will be responsible for the testing, deployment and operation of the services themselves.
Around 20,000 employees will be moved from other departments into the new business units. The reorganisation will entail no job losses, according to a BT spokesperson.
BT's chief executive, Ben Verwaayen, said: "This is the second phase of BT's transformation. The first phase saw BT shift its focus from narrowband to broadband. This next stage is equally important. It will see BT advance from a 20th century hardware-based company to a 21st century software-based services company."
In a software-driven world, he said, services would be "available in real-time and around the globe, harnessing the potential of BT's 21st Century Network".
Andy Green has become the chief executive of group strategy and operations, and is effectively now in charge of overseeing both BT Design and BT Operate. Previously the chief executive of BT Global Services, Green has been replaced in that capacity by Francois Barrault, formerly president of BT International.
BT's spokesperson said the reorganisation would not affect BT's customers in the sense of who they deal with: "All the customer-facing lines of business stay exactly where they are, keeping all the accountability and responsibility for their customers." The spokesperson added the move had been designed to make BT "nimbler and speedier".
David Meyer writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
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1. Steve Watkins
Interesting that BT are coming into the 21st century. My wife has just rung up about our latest BT bill in which they have tried to charge us for installation charges for which (they said twice) we would not be liable. After being left on the phone for over 5 minutes listening to the message 'your call is important to us' the jobsworth who answered it eventually tried to put us on to home highway about the query, who promptly cut us off.
Perhaps BT could learn some manners.
2. anonymous
If BT were serious about the future they would put their money where their mouth is. The legacy residential (and business) cable distribution systems have just about outlived their usefulness and should be replaced with systems supporting much higher synchronous bi directional bandwidths. ADSL and ADSL+ are just not suitable for some current and future applications. Depending on location users get speeds between 8mbs and 0.2mbs (or even less). At least cable companies can deliver a constant service as specified.
How are they (BT and other providers) going to deliver IPTV and other bandwidth hungry applications on such an unstable and ageing infrastructure?