Press Releases

Budapest, April 3, 2001

Matáv and Cisco Announce Development of IP Centre of Excellence.

Matáv, the leading Hungarian telecommunications provider and Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today announced their collaboration to establish a Centre of Excellence, which will be the foundation for the development and introduction of IP services in Hungary, specifically addressing the Enterprise, SMB and Wholesale markets.

Matáv and Cisco will combine their key areas of competence to address the rapidly growing market for IP services, ensuring rapid time to market of innovative new services that will provide competitive advantage for their customers. The collaboration has set an aggressive objective to launch the Centre of Excellence and initial IP service offering by the end of June 2001, with up to four new services being launched every 12 months thereafter.

"A strong business relationship is the key to success in today's market, and the recently signed agreement in Hungary is a good example and a first step towards this new style of co-operation. The Internet Economy is about new ways to forge close business relationships that focus on customer success. Combining the strength of Matav's market knowledge and Cisco Systems' world-wide expertise in Internet Protocol (IP) technologies will enable the two companies to bring a full set of value-added services to the different markets in Hungary: The Service offerings will target enterprises, small/medium businesses, the SOHO (small office, home office) market, but also New Service Providers in Hungary" said. Michael Ganser, VP Cisco Systems EMEA."

The collaboration extends to a number of areas, including the joint operation of the Center of Excellence, which will provide a state-of-the-art test laboratory at Matáv for the development and testing of new IP services. In addition Cisco and Matáv will embark upon shared education programs to ensure their technical and sales teams are consistently evolving their approach to leading edge IP technology solutions. Finally the two companies will combine their strengths in marketing the new services as they are launched.

"The IP market is very fast moving and in order to face the challenges as well as remaining successful and competitive, service providers and manufacturers need to find a new style of co-operation," said Mr. Elek Straub Chairman & CEO of Matáv. "One of the most challenging tasks we face is to identify successful new processes that will enable us to reduce the time to market, making new IP services available within a very short timeframe. We firmly believe that the collaboration with Cisco will allow us to quickly move the Internet into our everyday life."