Collaborative network API venture gets a name and a CEO

Aduna is derived from the Latin word for many entities uniting as one, says the release from Ericsson. The company will sell network APIs globally, and the vision is that new applications will work anywhere on any network. This will pave the way for developers to innovate much more quickly and easily, we’re told

Making network capabilities more easily accessible will allow developers to create new use cases across multiple sectors, so goes the pitch, and Aduna will provide network APIs to a ‘broad ecosystem’ of developer platforms, based on existing industry-wide CAMARA APIs.

The – at the time unnamed – company was announced in September last year, with América Móvil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Reliance Jio, Singtel, Telefonica, Telstra, T-Mobile, Verizon and Vodafone as the founding telcos, along with Ericsson.

At that point deals had already been signed with Ericsson-owned Vonage and Google Cloud for access to their respective ecosystems of millions of developers as well as their partners, and we were told under the proposed structure Ericsson will control 50% of the company, while the operator members will hold the remaining 50% between them. There is also a standing invitation for any other operators that wish to join.

New head honcho Bartolo is described as a “veteran tech executive with more than 30 years of experience scaling global businesses, driving new commercial strategies, and motivating cross-functional teams to achieve exceptional growth.”

Most recently he served as Chief Operating Officer at Vonage and earlier at Bandwidth. Prior to that he was Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer at Avaya, and held several executive roles at Tata Communications, including President of Mobility and Chief Product Officer.

“Anthony is a recognized global technology leader with a proven track record in driving successful strategy execution in fast-moving businesses,” said Niklas Heuveldop, Head of Business Area Global Communications Platform for Ericsson. “His unique cross-industry expertise across the technology, operational and business domains positions him exceptionally well to deliver on Aduna’s vision.

“We are excited about Anthony now stepping in to further accelerate the onboarding of developer platform partners, enabling millions of developers to access advanced network capabilities and drive the next wave of services innovation via common APIs across industry-leading partner networks worldwide.”

Bartolo added: “Aduna is at the forefront of the next technology wave. Providing developers with ubiquitous access to open, programmable network functionality through common APIs will empower them to innovate at global hyperscale and drive value creation for enterprises, their customers and the telecom industry.

“These new and more advanced applications will create better customer experiences, open new revenue streams, work seamlessly anywhere in the world, and provide businesses with innovative and differentiating ways to operate. I am honored to lead Aduna towards a new frontier for the future of technology, communication and the telecom industry.”

Bartolo will take up the reins later this month, and the closing of the venture is expected later this year, subject to various regulatory nods.