Portugal Telecom, Altran Portugal partner on cloud services

Portugal’s incumbent telco Portugal Telecom announced a partnership with consulting and IT services firm Altran Portugal this week in a deal that will see the companies combine their cloud and datacentre services.

As part of the deal Altran’s customers will be able to use Portugal Telecom’s network to gain access to their cloud-based services, and use the telco’s datacentres to host a range of software and platform services.

“This agreement with Altran formalises an important partnership, which will ensure competitiveness on a world scale, in terms of addressing different markets with information and communication technologies, throughout a global reach network of datacentres,” said Miguel Moreira, chief executive officer of PT’s cloud unit

“We are proud to internationally grow alongside Altran,” he added.

According to Altran, Portugal has extremely competitive conditions in financial terms and the country’s proximity to some of its major European clients proved to be a decisive factor to combine efforts with Portugal Telecom. The consultancy added that it has a range of technology and innovation services in its portfolio, but infrastructure, cloud and datacentres are out of its scope.

“In these fields we seek strategic partnerships that offer, together with the high-tech expertise of our specialists, the best possible solutions for our client’s needs,” explained Bruno Casadinho, business unit director for telecoms and media for Altran Portugal.

“The infrastructure services such as cloud and datacentre of Portugal Telecom are fully complementary to the Nearshore offer of Altran Portugal. With this alliance Altran Portugal believes that the European and Nearshore customers will have an excellent and trusted service proposition to optimise their OPEX.”

Portugal Telecom’s Moreira added that with Portugal Telecom’s  infrastructure, particularly its datacentre in Covilhã, the operator has leveraged its expertise to provide its clients with infrastructure services.

“Also, a wide circle of investment ranging international next generation networks, fibre and 4G has put forward many arguments that show the company has the expertise and strategic assets to ensure competitiveness on a world scale within the context of Information and Communication Technologies,” Moreira added.

The announcement follows a series of significant investments made by the Portuguese telco. Last year the company launched the first of four rooms of its £75m modular cloud datacentre in Covilhã, one of the largest and most eco-friendly in Europe. And last month, Portugal Telecom  joined the Cloud Team Alliance, a Belgacom-led partnership between telcos focused on extending the coverage of their cloud services by sharing networks and technical resources, helping each operator optimise their network architectures for cloud computing.