Internet Solutions from Nortel JV
Are Key to Future EADS Defence Electronics

ILA 2000: Internet technologies are the wave of the future for C4ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconaissance), and EADS is ready to capitalize on these skills, according to Defence and Civil Systems head Thomas Enders.

"One of the strategic perspectives we are looking at is Internet and defense, and how we can leverage those technologies and competences into additional business," he told Show News.

Key to EADS' aspirations are its joint ventures with Canadian-based Internet solutions provider Nortel (which has JVs with both Dasa and Aerospatiale Matra). Nortel is a global leader in telephony, data, eBusiness and wireless solutions for the Internet, and logged revenues last year of $21.3 billion.
To date Nortel has not significantly addressed the defense market, but Enders believes there is great potential there as armed forces modernize their telecommunication, reconnaissance and surveillance equipment and insist on real time data acquisition and distribution.

"This technology is important for all our businesses, for missiles, communications and defense electronics," Enders said. "Without access to Internet solutions, there will be no defense electronics business in the future."

Enders does not foresee every airplane, UAV and ground commander linked together through Internet Protocol (IP) technologies, but all must have access for communication and other purposes, he believes. "We know the defense customer very well and we already have communication and networking activities that are very profitable; Nortel has the Internet technology and is providing dynamically new technology, so to combine the two will be very powerful," he said.

EADS will not try to duplicate or mimic its big defense electronics competitors "but will try to leapfrog them in certain concepts with commercial cutting-edge technology," he promised.

©Show News ILA 2000