In spite of soft economic conditions in the European theatre during 2003, TANDBERG made significant investments to support the market expansion that the company expects in coming quarters. One of the investment areas from which EMEA saw immediate results was the services business, which grew 20%. A broader array of service products as well as a greater emphasis on solutions produced these results. The EMEA theatre also saw improved results in the Eastern Europe region during the latter part of the year, specifically in Poland, Czech Republic, and Russia.

Established as a new theatre of operations in 2003, EMEA is poised for growth. Yngve Nygaard joined TANDBERG as President, TANDBERG Europe. Yngve formerly held executive positions with ASICS and Mercedes Benz before accepting this important role on the TANDBERG leadership team. He will lead operations in Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Central Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and the Emerging Markets of Africa, Hungary, Poland, India and the Middle East, which are now managed separately from the company’s Asian operations.

In 2004 investment and execution priorities will include EMEA channels, targeted vertical markets, and high potential geographic markets. The channel team is being strengthened and programs realigned to more effectively support TANDBERG partners. A vertical market team has been established to further penetrate markets in healthcare, finance, education, and the public sector. Both of these 2004 initiatives, and the company’s ability to take advantage of the market transition in Europe from ISDN to IP, will lead to improved performance.

TANDBERG earned a special honor from Cisco Systems in April. Cisco Systems selected TANDBERG as its Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data (AVVID) Partner of the year in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Investing in the Cisco AVVID architecture has enabled TANDBERG to offer an end-to-end fully compatible and integrated internetworking solution based on Cisco IOS functionality. Cisco and TANDBERG are conducting joint channel training programs in Europe.

Customer deployments in EMEA during 2003 included Telecom Italia, Dublin Institute of Technology, Tarmac Group and GazProm.