Andersen Consulting, Microsoft Form New Services Firm: Avenade

Plans call for hiring 3,000 consultants with expertise in Microsoft's products within 24 months-an incredibly short ramp considering the current state of employment in the high-tech arena of ebusiness development. The company says that the services offered by Avenade could reach $15 billion by that time as well. Predictably, plans call for an IPO at an unspecified time as well.

While headquartered in Seattle--close to Microsoft's Redmond offices--Avenade plans to open its doors in San Francisco, Dallas, New York, Paris, London, Sydney, Sao Paulo and Singapore in the next 18 months.

Executives from both Andersen and Microsoft sit on the company's board of directors, including Jack Wilson, managing general partner of AC Ventures, John Connors, CFO at Microsoft, and Paul Maritz, group vice president, Developer Group at Microsoft.

As part of the announcement, Andersen also says it is forming a dedicated group within the company to expand its support of Microsoft technologies. The Microsoft Solutions Organization will consist of some 3,000 "business solution architects" specializing in the Windows 2000 platform. The division will be headed up by Karl Newkirk, a senior Andersen Consulting partner who was the global managing partner for Andersen's Enterprise Business Solutions (EBS) group.