Telecom network maker Ericsson today announced the initial outcome of its strategic alliance with networking major Cisco — at GSMA’s Mobile World Congress (MWC 2016).
Ericsson has tied up with Cisco to counter competition from the $17 billion acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent by Nokia.
The alliance between Ericsson and Cisco announced in November 2015 targeting $2 billion new revenue to Ericsson allows customers to get routing, data center, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities from two best technology firms.
“The companies’ sales forces have engaged with customers across the world on business deals spanning networking, mobility and cloud technologies, IP transformation and managed services agreements, resulting in new and expanded businesses opportunities,” said Ericsson in a statement.
“In the three months since the partnership was announced, close to 200 customer engagements have resulted in multiple recent customer wins, including agreements with operators for mobile IP backbone network transformation, transformation of TV proposition and cable network, modernization of mobile backhaul leveraging Ericsson’s systems integrations and global services capabilities,” said Ericsson.
Cisco and Ericsson accelerated work on their joint go-to-market models and sales force training, and are making progress with their tactical planning and global resource build-up.
Further solutions and collaborations are being pursued in parallel in six strategic areas – IP core, fixed cable broadband access, business VPN, mobile backhaul, IP transformation services and IP & IT managed services – as well as smart cities, with the potential to collaborate on Internet of Things (IoT) technology development.
Ericsson introduced the Ericsson Dynamic Service Manager, a product for real-time management of network services via multiple technology and vendor domains. The Dynamic Service Manager will initially focus on multi-vendor mobile backhaul, IP core, and enterprise VPNs.
The two companies have signed an intellectual property rights agreement, as well as a professional services agreement. The latter will leverage a combination of 66,000 Ericsson and 11,000 Cisco services employees to provide consulting, systems integration, support and managed services across IT and networks in 180 countries.
Cisco also announced a collaboration with Ericsson and Intel to develop 5G router for business and residential services. As members of the Verizon 5G Technology Forum, Cisco, Ericsson and Intel are partnering with Verizon within an ecosystem to accelerate the pace of critical 5G innovations.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
