Microsoft Sri Lanka, the local office of the world’s leading software conglomerate and Sri Lanka Telecom, Sri Lanka’s premier communications provider, today announced the signing of an Enterprise Agreement (EA) to strengthen SLT’s IT infrastructure. Microsoft’s Enterprise Agreement provides volume licenses for medium and large-scale businesses that make an enterprise wide decision to deploy Microsoft products. The EA is Microsoft’s most preferred offering for its corporate clients – ensuring that the enterprise partner receives a host of value added benefits along with genuine Microsoft software.

Sri Lanka Telecom has been a pioneer in bringing state of the art technology to the Telecommunication industry in Sri Lanka, through its philosophy of technology driven services to guarantee their customers a superior product. The company has been proactive, striving to be in the forefront of information and communication technology. To this end, its partnership with Microsoft Sri Lanka in an Enterprise Agreement will enhance the effective use of enterprise technologies to achieve a synergy with SLT’s existing ICT infrastructure and enterprise applications. Furthermore this new partnership will allow SLT to benefit from its existing investments in technology.

The EA will allow SLT to license Microsoft software based on a three-year agreement during which they will be entitled to the use of latest Microsoft technology, software packages, innovations, training components and a host of privileges especially designed for them. This will provide more value, more manageability, and more assistance for SLT through ‘Software Assurance’. Software Assurance provides a powerful combination of benefits that includes automatic new version rights, the ‘Home Use Program’, and many other advantages including support, tools, employee training and updates on the latest technical information, giving the organization the flexibility it needs to have an edge over its competition. Moreover, on completion of the three years SLT receives a perpetual license for these Microsoft products.

Commenting on the agreement Mr. Shuhei Anan, CEO of SLT said “We are proud to partner with Microsoft who will help us strengthen SLT’s IT infrastructure and provide complete security. This agreement will enable us to use IT more effectively. We also hope to seek Microsoft expertise for future developments in IT related work”

Mr. Sriyan D.S Wijeratne, Country Manager of Microsoft Sri Lanka added “We are honoured to provide to this service to SLT, whom we consider one of our valued partners. We will provide training for the SLT staff which will in turn be a huge saving for SLT as we will be utilizing our existing servers & other IT infrastructure.

Further more, Mr. Sandalal Edirisinghe, Chief IT Officer of SLT, stated “As the premier telecommunications provider we are always looking at innovative ways of improving our technology. This partnership is yet another step of achieving this goal. We will work closely with Microsoft to develop customize value added services for SLT  which enable Microsoft to bring the “Best Practices” for our IT operations. This partnership will not limited to Licensing agreement rather Microsoft will partner with SLT initiatives such as in developments in Broadband, Mobile solutions & Next Generation Network and further provide benefits to SLT iDC operation  

Sri Lanka Telecom (www.slt.lk) is one of the country’s most vital utility companies with an annual turnover in excess of Rs.29.5 billion. The group of company has over one million customer base including multinational corporations, large and small corporates, retail and domestic customers. Today with NTT of Japan as a strategic partner, SLT provides facilities and services to its customers, which are unmatched in scope. These services range from domestic and international voice, advance data transmission services which include internet services on leased lines, broadband [on ADSL] and dial up, data circuits, frame relay solutions, to IP based services such as IP-VPN, total solutions of combination of multiple services, satellite uplink services and mobile telephony through fully owned subsidiary Mobitel etc. The company was also awarded an AAA (sri) rating by Fitch Ratings Lanka followed by a B+ international rating by Fitch International and Standard & Poor’s.