NTT to ramp up Australian presence

NTT Communications will be ramping up its Australian presence by rebranding its local subsidiaries.

The IT and communications giant operates locally as NTT Australia and via the two local solution providers it acquired in 2011, Frontline and Harbour MSP.

Michael Fortescue, NTT Communications' director of sales and marketing, said the rebranding followed a two-year integration process.

"Frontline, Harbour MSP and NTT Australia are in the process of integrating to become one company. We are looking to do a rebrand launch in the very near future," he told CRN.

NTT Communications acquired a majority 70 percent stake in Frontline and Harbour MSP in December 2011. The purchase gave NTT Communications a footprint in four Australian cities.

At the time, Frontline described NTT Communications as "still relatively unknown in Australia"; this week, Fortescue told CRN that NTT Communications was "the second-largest data centre services operator in the world".

The rebrand will help NTT Communications assert its presence in the local Australian market.

The rebranding follows its two acquisitions last week; NTT Communications bought US companies Virtela Technology Services and RagingWire for US$875 million.

Fortescue said both of these acquisitions would make NTT Communications more competitive in the Australian market.

"We deliver services into 160 countries and the acquisition of Virtela boosts it significantly by expanding our coverage into 190 countries."

Similarly, RagingWire's patented power conservation and cooling technologies will eventually be rolled out into NTT Communications' Australian data centres.

Fortescue added NTT Communications' sister company, Dimension Data, will also benefit from the recent acquisitions. "Dimension Data will indirectly benefit from the acquisition because it leverages NTT Communications network and data assets."

Parent company NTT Corp acquired solutions provider Dimension Data in 2010 for £2.1 billion (A$3.5 billion).

Fortescue said the recent string of acquisitions demonstrated "NTT's appetite to grow and expand its business in Western economies and bolster its capabilities around integrated ICT solutions".

NTT Communications hopes to grow its global cloud services revenue to roughly US$2 billion by March 2016.