Ericsson picks up IT services expertise

Swedish equipment manufacturer Ericsson has announced its intention to acquire the IT services capabilities of the Devoteam Telecom & Media operation in France.

The deal will see 400 France-based IT services professionals join Ericsson, including the company’s TV SmartVision operations, which is in line with Ericsson’s strategy of being a ‘one stop’ shop.

Devoteam’s main competences are in the areas of consulting and systems integration for operations and business support systems, service delivery platforms and applications, IP Multimedia Subsystems, IP and radio networks and TV.

“Acquiring activities of Devoteam adds unique expertise in complex, strategic and technical consulting engagements that will enable us to immediately enhance the value that we bring to our customers,” said Magnus Mandersson, Ericsson’s executive VP and head of business unit global services.

Ericsson’s strategy is focused on leveraging assets that it has acquired in recent years. Building on the acquisition of Telcordia in 2011, B/OSS has become a key strategic area for Ericsson to focus on as it is so closely tied to SDN (software defined network) evolution, according to CTO Ulf Uwaldsson.

Read more about Ericsson and NSN’s strategies

Ericsson has also recognised the challenge in integration of wifi technologies with those developed by the 3GPP. Building on another acquisition— BelAir networks in April of 2012—Ericsson is now tackling the issue with a wifi controller interface that talks to the 3GPP core, allowing operators to apply the same policy control and charging mechanisms. The company unveiled the first product to make use of this technology in October, with the launch of a stadium optimised wifi access point and controller.

And with Redback, which gave it strong assets in IP routing technology, the firm acquired the “glue” to hold broadcast, IT and telecoms services together in the broadcast services division of Technicolor.