Ericsson kills the IT market to complete cloud computing layout

The giant cloud computing market has added a rival.

"Ericsson is well prepared. "On November 6, at the 2014 Ericsson Business Innovation Forum in Stockholm," Jason Hoffman, head of Ericsson Cloud software product line, said in an interview with the 21st Century Economics report that Ericsson had completed its cloud computing layout and was now in full implementation.

Since the second half of this year, Ericsson has bought four innovative cloud technology companies in the United States and reached a strategic partnership with a leading cloud security firm. In the first quarter of this year, Ericsson pushed its own cloud system. Back in 2012, Ericsson had signed a seven-year cooperation agreement with Swedish carmaker Volvo to develop a technology based on car networking, and the luxury cars that Volvo now sells in the US and China have been installed in the networked cloud platform they have teamed up to develop.

Jason Hoffman says Ericsson has generated a lot of revenue from cloud technology, but he cannot disclose the exact numbers. "I hope cloud technology will become Ericsson's biggest revenue business as soon as possible." Jason Hoffman.

Overall layout

Six months ago, Jason Hoffman from a leading Swedish cloud software company to Ericsson, fully responsible for Ericsson's cloud software products, the department's global staff has now reached 11,000 people.

"We built a product that Ericsson didn't have before. "said Jason Hoffman. Now, Ericsson already has a full range of cloud technologies and products across IaaS, PAAS, and SaaS.

As the world's leading provider of communications equipment, Ericsson has long seen that cloud technology will fundamentally change the global ICT infrastructure and make it one of the company's strategic growth areas. 2012, Ericsson joined Cloud Technology's most important open-source organization OpenStack to help develop OpenStack to support telecommunications services and applications. Ericsson is now a gold member of the OpenStack Foundation.

Ericsson also develops its own cloud system based on OpenStack. In the first quarter of this year, Ericsson Cloud Systems listed, the network, computing and storage of the cloud system marked Ericsson has emerged from the traditional telecommunications market, full access to the IT market.

Since then, Ericsson has been making up and strengthening its cloud systems through a series of acquisitions.

July 29, 2014, Ericsson acquired U.S. Metratech, a leading US billing software provider, which has not only boosted Ericsson's cloud system but also expanded its presence in the traditional telecoms market.

September 12, Ericsson also acquired the Fabrix system to speed up its cloud video transformation. To be aware, television and media is Ericsson's fastest growing business in recent years, providing services to 500 TV channels worldwide, with market share being the world's first.

September 26, Ericsson immediately acquired the U.S. cloud computing software company Apcera Control, Apcera developed a continuum-named PAAs (Platform-service). PAAs is seen by Ericsson as the key to success in the cloud.

October 17, Ericsson also acquired a US company providing IT infrastructure intelligence software Sentilla to enhance its cloud management and analytics capabilities.

Meanwhile, on September 3, Ericsson announced a strategic partnership with Cloud Security technology company Guardtime to integrate its globally exclusive key-signing patented technology (KSI) into the Ericsson Cloud portfolio to secure its cloud products. "We understand that 74% of the world's largest companies are afraid to embrace cloud technology because of their concerns about regulation and security." "said Jason Hoffman.

In addition to cloud systems, Ericsson has hatched two mature cloud applications--car networking and ship networking. Ericsson and Volvo in two years to build a car networking cloud platform, the platform not only integrated navigation, entertainment and other functions, but also car dealers and other industrial chain integration into the, Volvo Group Chief information Officer Klas Bendrik said this is a huge ecosystem.

While the interconnection is mainly based on Ericsson's cooperation with the world's largest shipping company, Ericsson will install its technology for 400 of Maersk's more than 500 container ships in two years to achieve real-time monitoring of each container.

The cloud system, coupled with cloud applications, forms the private cloud of Ericsson. In the traditional telecommunications network, Ericsson is mainly virtualization, and put into the cloud, the company launched in February this year telecom Cloud upgrade advisory services. "From next year, all of Ericsson's products will be virtualized, which means customers can buy hardware and software separately." Ericsson CEO Vestberg in an interview on November 5, said that customers can already buy some core applications from Ericsson, and from other suppliers to buy hardware, "Of course, there are not many operators choose to do so, because to ensure the quality of the network."

Between the telecoms cloud and the private cloud, the newly acquired Apcera will play a very important role. "What Apcera do is put the private cloud and the telecom cloud together, let them understand each other, so that the application can move between the two, and in the private cloud to obtain the knowledge of the telecommunications network." "Apcerar will operate independently, which is different from other acquisitions," Vestberg said.

Market opponents

However, the cloud technology market is more competitive than the communications markets, Amazon, Google and other internet giants as early as the role of Subversion card market, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM and other traditional giants are doing their best, after all, they have deep roots in the IT market, with a large number of customers. Ericsson, in this market, is just a novice.

"From the product point of view, we do, whether the product or function are other products do not have, or simply do not exist, our product strategy is not so fierce competition in the field of development." "Jason Hoffman said that to Ericsson's object storage product, for example, to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the data, as far as he knows, other products do not have this ability.

Ericsson's cooperation with security Guardtimer is an important reason for ensuring this unique capability. Guardtimer's unsigned patented technology is said to be unique in global cloud security technology. The company's CEO, Matthew Johnson, explains the uniqueness of its cloud security technology: "As with 1 million dollars in a bank vault, traditional security vendors are like sending a security guard with a gun to the vault, but if the security guard is bought, you have no idea where the money will go. But our approach is to give each U.S. dollar unique fingerprint, can be real-time complete verification and tracking. ”

Guardtimer's biggest client is the Estonian Government, which connects the government's cloud and corporate private cloud, known as the world's most advanced cloud technology application. In addition, the Swedish SEB Bank is also a Guardtimer client. Ericsson is the first telecom customer in the company.

"In the cloud computing market, our biggest challenge is branding. Jason Hoffman, a reporter for the 21st century Economic report, said that many people in this market don't know who Ericsson is. But he believes Ericsson is well prepared, after all, that it has business in 180 countries and has a strong service organization.

Jason Hoffman that Ericsson's cloud products have huge opportunities in energy, transportation and utilities.

As for Ericsson's revenue targets for cloud business, Jason Hoffman said: "I hope to become Ericsson's biggest revenue business, the sooner the better." ”

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)