Staffing has been finalised for Telecom's newly merged Advanced Solutions-esolutions entity, with the loss of 35 positions, mainly in administration.
The new division's head, Chris Quin, says the jobs cuts are out of a total of 400 staff.
Quin says “a number” of positions in the two former entities have been dis-established and some new roles created, mainly in the product and service management area.
Several aspects of the new entity are still to be finalised, including its name and what part former esolutions partners EDS and Microsoft will play. The name will be decided by the end of July, Quin says. In the meantime he is referring to the new entity simply as “Solutions”.
Quin says “Solutions” will offer products and services in security, contact centres, managed infrastructure services (such as VPNs) and commerce services.
Telecom’s all-IP network, being built in partnership with Alcatel, will be pivotal in the provision of services from “Solutions”, he says.
He says an example of what “Solutions” may offer is contact centres for North American clients hosted in New Zealand. Such a service would utilise the transpacific Southern Cross cable, which Telecom part-owns.
“We have 30 staff on the ground in California and I did a presentation in the US recently and we’re working through a number of opportunities.”
Esolutions, the joint venture between Telecom, EDS and Microsoft that began in 2001 as an ASP provider then morphed into an e-commerce structure provider, was formally closed in May. EDS remains Telecom’s IT service provider and Quin says Microsoft is Telecom’s biggest New Zealand partner.