Is Verizon ready to ditch the enterprise? Reports in Reuters late last week said the telecommunications giant is seeking a buyer (or buyers) for $10 billion worth of enterprise assets, according to unnamed sources.
According to reports, Verizon may be seeking to offload its business-facing services in an effort to refocus on its core consumer services. The shift may also be inspired by Verizon’s lagging placement behind some of its other communications rivals in providing cloud computing corporate tools.
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Sources said the sales would include data unit Terremark as well as landline and Internet service provider assets, once known as MCI, that cater to large corporations.
Those sources, however, suggested that a sale could be difficult considering any buyer would have to sign commercial agreements that are already collectively under the Verizon name, meaning it would likely be complicated to break up these units. Reports added that Verizon is in the early stages of considering these divestitures and has not struck a deal yet. However, the company is said to already be working with Citigroup on potential sales.
Verizon had attempted to sell off some of its B2B services earlier this year, reports said, to CenturyLink, but negotiations stalled after they couldn’t agree on terms, the sources stated.
Verizon hasn’t entirely given up on the enterprise in recent years, however. The company launched ThingSpace, an Internet of Things platform, earlier this month. It’s a tool that aims to link products to its 4G LTE network at affordable costs for the makers of IoT-enabled devices, reports said, and the venture will include the development of chipsets to cut down the cost of developing such products that can connect to the Internet.
It is unclear whether this new initiative would also be part of any future sales.
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