(iTers News) - IBM and Completel, a Numericable Group company and a leader in optical fiber in France, today announced the signing of an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) contract, to deploy the Very High Speed ​​Cloud and thereby strengthening their presence among business customers.

Through this agreement, IBM and Numericable Group will offer public and private companies, including small and medium enterprises and industries (SME/SMI), agile, efficient and secure solutions, integrating Completel's network infrastructure and IBM's SoftLayer Cloud Computing.

By combining optical fiber with cloud, Completel and IBM will have the means to support their customers in the digital era: nomadism, social business, IT availability, or solutions such as Communication as a Service.

"In this year of the IBM France Centennial, we are very proud to work with Completel in this new cloud challenge, definitely aimed at providing outstanding performance to its customers." says Rémi Lassiaille, General Manager, IBM France Global Technology Services. "By combining its expertise in Very High Speed Telecoms solutions to new SoftLayer cloud infrastructure services, it will allow new uses for its customers."

This offer will be available throughout France for Completel's clients (including SMEs/SMIs, public sector) and partners (Independent Software Vendors, Systems Integrators).

"This collaboration was born out of a shared desire with IBM to offer our private and public clients a global package that meets their needs, current and future," emphasizes Paul Zenou, CEO of Completel. "The alliance between our optical fiber network and IBM's expertise in cloud solutions ensures the performance and safety of the solutions offered to our customers."

Completel engaged IBM because it is uniquely positioned to lead in the cloud market. IBM spends billions in R&D (US$6B) to drive innovation; IBM has thousands of cloud experts with deep industry knowledge and skills helping clients transform with cloud and drive growth, and boasts 1,560 cloud patents tied to inventions. IBM will also have 40 data centers worldwide in 2014, among which one that will be open in Paris in the second semester of 2014. No other vendor has these sets of capabilities combined.

IBM has always been committed to work closely with the French ecosystem through many projects and significant agreements. Completel also remains true to its positioning as an innovative operator, especially after launching in 2010 the first ultra broadband solutions or the only optical fiber 100 Mbits/s offer dedicated to SMEs. This collaboration shows once again IBM and Completel will to support French companies in their innovative projects and their transformation.