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The Company Behind The Technology

So what makes Atos Origin, the Paris-based IT services company that's serving as the "Worldwide IT Partner of the Olympic Games," worthy of such a role? For one thing, Atos Origin has done this sort of thing before.

The company has been the IT partner for the International Organizing Committee (IOC) since 2002, and has provided technology for the Games since 1992. Atos Origin has designed and built a number of critical applications specific to the Olympics, and those will be on display at the Beijing Games.

In addition to its Olympics experience, the company manages a number of sophisticated IT projects and has overseen complex, multipartner endeavors. But the pressure to perform well is especially high at the Olympics because much of the world will be watching. Like many of the veteran athletes in Beijing, Atos Origin will draw from the experience it has gained in previous Games.

"The scope and scale of the technology is very similar to that of the Athens 2004 Games," says Jeremy Hore, chief integrator at Atos Origin for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. But it's two to three times the scale of the Winter Games in Torino, Italy, Hore says.

As the Olympic Games' IT integrator, Atos Origin designed, built, and will operate the IT infrastructure. On the design side, the company had to create a technology infrastructure on time, to specification, and within budget. Much of the work here draws from its prior experience.

Building the infrastructure included the development of a customized suite of software applications that run many of the processes at the Games. For the Beijing Games, the company has sourced more than 50 applications from around the world.

And on the operations side, Atos Origin applies a "one team" approach to ensure that the complex network of partners and suppliers, employees and volunteers work together to deliver the best possible service and support to each Olympic Games.

The company "is putting great emphasis on knowledge management in order to reduce risks and costs as we implement best practices from Games to Games," Hore says.

As we've seen, Atos Origin believes in investing a lot of time in testing systems and testing them again to make sure they perform under a variety of conditions. Soon the world will learn how well prepared the company is.

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