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Lucent Technologies has gone from being Capgemini customer to Capgemini partner. The two companies today announced they have entered into a strategic partnership to include Lucent's portfolio of network integration services under the Capgemini rubric.

Capgemini, a European IT consulting powerhouse, will have access to Lucent's entire communications and software product set, and the two companies already have put their partnership to task, working jointly on a $187 million network services management contract with TXU, a Texas utilities conglomerate. Capgemini and Lucent announced the deal in May but company officials said today that the two have decided to turn their one-off deal into a formal partnership.

The new alliance may irk Capgemini's current North American network solutions partner Cisco Systems, but Capgemini Chief Operating Officer Pierre Danon said today at Supercomm that the consulting firm's relationship with Cisco is still strong. For the TXU deal, Danon said, Cisco was unable to provide the full network integration portfolio TXU requires, which led Capgemini to look for other networking partners. Capgemini, however, will continue to rely on Cisco in the future, he added.

"If the best [networking solution] for a client is a Cisco kit, then we'll use a Cisco kit," Danon said. "If it is a Lucent kit, we will use a Lucent kit." During its restructuring during the economic downturn, Lucent contracted with Capgemini to help revitalize its supply chain operations.