AT&T buy up IBM's Global Network Business

Bryce writes "AT&T and IBM announced a series of strategic agreements under which AT&T will acquire IBM's Global Network business for $5 billion in cash. (That's a lot of stuffed suitcases going across the boards tables) IBM will outsource a significant portion of its global networking needs to AT&T. AT&T will outsource certain applications processing and data center management operations to IBM. The transactions could represent $2.5 billion in additional revenue to AT&T in the first full year of operation. The IBM Global Network business AT&T will acquire serves the networking needs of several hundred large global companies, tens of thousands of mid-sized businesses and more than one million individual Internet users in 59 countries. The acquisition boosts AT&T's strategy to rapidly increase the company's revenue, especially at its fast- growing networking services unit, AT&T Solutions. About 5,000 IBM employees will join AT&T as part of a You'll find the AT&T's press release and the IBM version "