Local IT-based firms secure partnerships

JAKARTA (JP): Some local telecoms and IT-based companies have secured strategic alliances with their foreign counterparts during the Indonesian International Telecommunications, Media & Information Technology (IITELMIT) 2000 show, which ended on Saturday.

Among the companies that used the event to sign their new business deals is PT CyberCity Indonesia, a subsidiary of Singapore-based L&M Group Investments Ltd, which signed an agreement with the U.S.-based telecoms infrastructure provider Lucent Technologies on Thursday.

CyberCity Indonesia's president Edward Soerjadjaja said that under the agreement, Lucent would design, construct and operate a telecommunications network for his company's property project called CyberCity in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta.

He said CyberCity was not an ordinary residence and business estate since it would be fully equipped with infrastructures for both voice and data communications through fixed and wireless telephone and Internet.

"At the first stage, we will develop web portals and a multimedia academy on a 10 hectare plot," Edward said, adding that the company had allocated at least US$50 million as initial investment.

The holding company of several Internet-based firms, PT Tele Nusa Dunia (TND), has also made use of the IITELMIT event to advertise its new deals with foreign partners, the Netherlands- based Hollandse Telecommunicatie Maatschappij (HTM) and Australian OnQ, to form two separate joint ventures.

TND's director Willem Ouwens said the two newly founded joint ventures are PT HTM Indonesia and PT ONQ Indonesia.

PT HTM Indonesia, which is equally owned by TND and HTM will provide network installation services.

Ouwens said that among the potential clients HTM Indonesia expected to target were PT Telkom's KSO partners, mobile phone operators and other telecoms and IT-based companies.

"Telecoms operators are already running out of lines, they need to expand their capacities," he said.

The other new joint venture, OnQ Indonesia, is 40 percent owned by TND and 60 percent by OnQ, Ouwens said.

He said OnQ Indonesia would mainly provide telecommunication applications for the banking industry and cellular communications.

As part of the two new joint ventures, TND already has major ownership of about five Internet-based firms, including portal operator PT Portal Integrasi Indonesia and application developer PT SmartWeb Indonesia.

Another company that announced its business alliance at IITELMIT was giant computer manufacturer Compaq.

Compaq struck a deal with state-owned listed telecoms company PT Telkom for the establishment of an Internet development project called Electronic Mega Mall.

It said the project was developed by Telkom's multimedia division by utilizing Compaq's server infrastructures.

Compaq said the Electronic Mega Mall project was designed to support the development of e-commerce portal Plasa.com as well as Telkom's latest Internet service provider TELKOMnet Instant.

Additionally, mobile telephone operator Satelindo announced its alliance with computer applications provider SAP Asia to develop an e-business platform for the company's business operation. (cst)