2004 IT systems’ readiness ‘excellent’
Atos Origin, the Global Partner on IT and data management services for the Athens 2004 Olympics, announced that the final test of the Games’ information systems had gone smoothly. During the past week, 302 different crisis scenarios were assessed. They included topics such as data security, unauthorized access to IT systems, viruses, blackouts, absence of personnel for emergency reasons, various technical glitches and changes in event programming. These scenarios were designed, tested and assessed by a special team of 1,000 employees, different from the team of 3,400 Atos Origin employees and IT volunteers managing the Technology Operations Center, the Integration Test Lab, PC Factory, and several data centers used for primary storage and backup disaster recovery. Atos Origin is also handling the data and information security protecting the entire IT infrastructure for the Games. «The readiness level in this test was excellent,» said Philippe Verveer, general manager for technology at the International Olympic Committee. «Technical tests are especially important for the preparation of the Games and we are especially satisfied with the team’s performance, especially under conditions of great stress,» he added. Atos Origin has signed a contract with the IOC for the Athens and Beijing Summer Games and the 2006 Turin Winter Games. It leads a consortium of other major technology companies supplying the 10,500 computing devices, 1,000 servers, 23,000 phones, 2,500 Intranet terminals, 13,000 mobile phones, 4,000 printers and all the timing and scoring to run the Games. Atos was formed from the merger in 1997 of two French-based IT services companies – Axime and Sligos. It then merged with Origin, a subsidiary of Royal Philips Electronics. In August 2002, Atos Origin acquired KPMG Consulting in the UK and the Netherlands and, in January 2004, acquired Sema Group from Schlumberger. The expanded company offers multinational clients a full range of IT services and solutions in 50 countries, covering consulting, systems integration and managed operations. The company has combined annual revenues of over 5 billion euros and employs over 47,000 people.
