Orange Business acquires Expertime

Orange says the move supports its ambitions to accelerate its growth in digital services, and become the ‘leading network and digital services integrator in Europe.’

Expertime has 165 employees predominantly based in France and specialises in Microsoft technologies and solutions in public cloud, AI and data. In particular we’re told the acquisition will help Orange Business in its efforts to sell public cloud services to SMBs thanks to some Microsoft Azure expertise within the outfit.

This purchase is part of the firm’s ‘Lead the future’ strategic plan. When it was announced back in February, this was pitched as a move to ‘bring Orange Business back to market standards and profitable growth.’ It also targeted revenues of €1.3 billion in the cyber security market by 2025 through Orange Cyberdefense, and annual revenue growth of 7% between 2022 and 2025 as well as a ‘significant increase in profitability’ in Africa and the Middle East.

“In times where digital workforce resources are scarce, we are thrilled to welcome the team of Expertime to Orange Business,” said François Fleutiaux, Executive Vice President, Orange Business France. “We are convinced that their skills and experience will be a major asset and enable us to continue helping businesses make the most of the current opportunities within cloud, AI and data, to roll out their digital transformation.”

Philippe Luzet, General Manager, Expertime added: “Aligning our visions on how to meet our customers' specific business needs was a natural step in bringing us together. We are delighted with this operation, which delivers a true synergy between our know-how and will result in a complete value proposition for our clients and partners.”

Orange Business recently gave a presentation to analysists in journos in London on some recent bespoke B2B technology deployments, as an update to the Lead the Future plan.

CEO Aliette Mousnier-Lompré described the firm’s USP as sitting between the IT and telco worlds, saying “We intend to become the European leader in network and digital integration… We are able to do this all over the world, including in times of crisis… we are in sweet spot that very few players worldwide are able to occupy.”