Stratus re-enters telco biz

Stratus, the fault tolerant server company, has reached an agreement with beleaguered networking giant Lucent to lift contractual restrictions which prevented it selling its full range of servers to service providers.

Because of this, Stratus Technologies may now directly sell its Continuum 600 and 1200 Series servers, XA/R legacy systems, system upgrades for VOS and FTX-supported applications, and service for these systems to telecommunications customers. These systems are used for operational support systems such as billing data collection.

Restrictions on selling this kit, which arise from a complicated string of business deals, were due to last until the end of February next year.

In 1998 Ascend Communications acquired Stratus Computer expressly for its telecom technology. The enterprise computing business of Stratus was taken private in a management buyout a year later and conditions on its ability to sell into the telco space were imposed at this time. These conditions were subsequently policed by Lucent when it acquired Ascend in 1999.

David Chalmers, technology director EMEA for Stratus Technologies, said that Lucent has decided to move out of the market for telco-orientated servers, as part of a plan to focus its business and stem losses and is no longer seeking to limit Stratus Technologies' business in this area.

A block on Stratus Technologies' ability to sell its family of fault-tolerant Windows 2000 servers, called ftServer, to the telecommunications marketplace were lifted in February this year according to the original timetable set at the time of the management buy-out. ®

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