French IT services giant ATOS has expanded its joint investment programme with Germany’s Siemens by a further €100 million (£87 million) the company said this morning – announcing an “ambitious” joint go-to-market plan.
The duo inked a rare Franco-German business partnership in December 2010 that created Europe’s largest IT services actor.
As part of the deal, Siemens exchanged its IT Solutions and Services arm for 12.5 million of newly issued Atos Origin shares (then valued at €414 million), a five-year convertible bond of €250 million and a cash payment of €186 million.
As part of the deal Siemens concluded a seven-year outsourcing contract worth around €5.5 billion, under which Atos provides Managed Services and Systems Integration to Siemens.
The new programme “aims to develop joint capabilities in data analytics, artificial intelligence, advanced IoT & connectivity services, cyber security and digital service technologies to support… customers through an end-to-end IoT suite”, the companies said.
The move comes as Siemens continues to push the digitalisation of manufacturing. This allows manufacturers to create a “digital twin” with the ability to design, simulate, and test complex products in the virtual domain before making the first physical prototype – then refining them to reflect performance data passed back from IoT-connected parts.
Since the start of the partnership in 2011 Siemens and Atos have achieved a joint order intake of €2.5 billion, they said, admitting that it “significantly surpassed all expectations.”
The two now work together across systems integration, application management, cloud computing, IT solutions for industry software, mobility, building technologies, smart power grids and other IT services, including cyber security for critical infrastructure.
Siemens also looks to AWS
The French company joins ‘Charter of Trust’
Salesforce also looks to boost analytics capabilities
It comes after ATOS – the IT partner for the recent Olympic & Paralympics Winter Games in PyeongChang – claimed to have successfully hosted 100 percent of all critical applications in the cloud for the first time, delivering systems for accreditation, team entries, sport qualification and workforce management remotely.
