NextiraOne and Alcatel Form Strategic Agreement

March 21, 2002 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Platinum Equity LLC (peh.com), a leading private buyout firm focused on acquiring technology firms, announced on Tuesday that its portfolio company, NextiraOne (nextiraone.com), a leading provider of network solutions, has signed a product distribution agreement with communications company Alcatel (alcatel.com) in the United States.

According to the terms of the agreement, the Alcatel OmniPCX 4400 IP PBX and Omni family of next-generation convergence-optimized switches will become an integral pat of NextiraOne’s network LifeCyclesm solutions portfolio, which serves North America and Mexico.

"This is an important first step in building a long-term relationship with Platinum Equity and NextiraOne," commented Patrick Liot, president of Alcatel's e-business networking division. "Alcatel and NextiraOne share a common goal of providing clients with best-of-breed solutions for their enterprise voice and data networks. This collaboration creates a total IP communications solution that will bring unprecedented benefits to the U.S., Canadian, and Mexican markets."

NextiraOne says its status as an important provider of voice and data convergence solutions will be significantly strengthened by the new relationship with Alcatel. The company says it is confident that customers throughout North America will appreciate the benefits of Alcatel’s enterprise focused convergence product portfolio.

The agreement, says Platinum Equity, follows an announcement made by the company in January of 2002, that it would acquire the $1.3 billion European operations of Alcatel’s direct enterprise distribution and services business.