Lean and mean
Former UK telco monopoly BT managed to return to profit last year as a severe and prolonged programme of job cuts, efficiency improvements and the turn-around of its Global Services division all finally paid dividends.
Full year revenue actually fell slightly in comparison to the previous year, but such was the lowering of overheads that BT reported a profit of over a billion pounds, compared to the loss of a quarter of a billion the previous year. This was almost entirely down to sorting out the Global Services division, which saw its EBITDA increase by 453 percent in the past year.
"We are investing in the future of our business, enhancing our TV offering and building on opportunities in our Global Services business," said BT chief exec Ian Livingston. "Assuming an acceptable environment for investment, we see the potential to roll out fibre to around two-thirds of the UK by 2015. This will take our total fibre investment to £2.5bn which will be managed within our current levels of capital expenditure."
While it's great to hear how committed BT is to fibre, we have to assume Livingstone is referring to tax-payer contribution when he refers to "an acceptable environment for investment". He might find this drying up once the new coalition government gets to grips with the sheer horror of the public finances - especially since Virgin seems to be doing just fine without public money.
BT has deigned to invest some of its own money today, however. It has bought a 2.6 percent stake in OnLive - a US cloud gaming outfit. BT intends to bundle this on-demand gaming service with its broadband, and it's entirely cloud-based - i.e. no download, everything is streamed, so you can even use it on TVs or rubbish PCs. Could be interesting.
