Avaya scores with World Cup 2002 deal
At a press conference in Seoul this afternoon, the New York Stock Exchange-listed company said it will also be "Official Convergence Communication Provider" for the Women's World Cup 2003 in China and the World Cup 2006 in Germany.
Avaya's sponsorship--which aims to enable the communications services and secure data and voice networks for all 20 venues across the two countries--will be "monetary and in kind", said Avaya Asia Pacific chief operating officer Dan McConaghy in a phone interview this morning.
Specifically, the Lucent Technologies spin-off will be providing its Enterprise-Class Internet Protocol Solutions (ECLIPS) portfolio of IP telephony and multi-service networking products, applications and services, it said in a statement.
It will also be implementing customer relationship management (CRM) and unified communication solutions, which includes unified messaging, conferencing and video-conferencing technologies.
According to McConaghy, Avaya provided the cabling and connectivity infrastructure for the Sydney Olympics last year.
He declined to reveal specific figures for the World Cup deal, but a Financial Times article Tuesday estimated the entire deal at over US$20 million--said to be similar to amounts paid by other FIFA sponsors such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's.
The implementation and execution of the infrastructure solution for the World Cup has began "with immediate effect", he added.
Previous technology providers for the FIFA World Cup France 1998 were Hewlett-Packard, EDS, Sybase Inc and France Telecom.
Other main sponsors for next year's soccer event are Adidas, Budweiser, Coca Cola, Fuji Film, Fuji Xerox, Gillette, Hyundai, JVC, Korea Telecom, MasterCard and McDonald's.
Overnight, Avaya shares fell US$0.19 to US$16.4 on the American bourse.