AT&T Tackles European Enterprise Market (T, VZ)

Here's a full page AT&T ad from today's Financial Times (London edition). The text reads:

World's most admired telecommunications company. And now, we're stronger than ever. Months ago, we joined forces with SBC - the leading provider of DSL broadband in America. Today, we are one. The only one recognized by FORTUNE magazine as the most admired telecommunications company in the world. We look forward to continuing to lead the way. And ushering in a whole new era in communications - in America, and around the world.

Shudder.

[BTW, I assumed that "only" was implicit in the use of the phrase "most admired", but what do I know? Early last November I wrote a piece on net neutrality for our monthly, in which I included a block quote from Ed Whitacre's now famous Businessweek interview. I handed it over to one of our translators, a Japanese woman who is fairly meticulous in her use of English, and an hour or so later she burst out laughing: "He's the CEO of a major global corporation, and he used the word 'ain't' in a press interview?"]

Anyway, this looks to be aimed straight at the enterprise space, and in the wake of the T/BLS deal in the States, I guess we can expect T and VZ/MCI to be competing even more brutally in this particular market segment, including in Europe. I seem to recall comments some months back to the effect that SBC/T and VZ/MCI intergration processes would somehow be a distraction which others in the space could benefit from. If that was ever true, I doubt it will remain so for long.