Vodafone bags Big Blue as $550 million partner

Vodafone Business and IBM have signed-off on a new joint venture which will aim to develop systems to help data and applications flow freely around an organization.

The joint-venture, which will be operational in the first half of 2019, will aim to bring together the expertise of both the parties to solve one of the industry’s biggest challenges; multi-cloud interoperability and the removal of organizational siloes. On one side of the coin you have IBM’s cloud know-how while Vodafone will bring the IoT, 5G and edge computing smarts. A match made in digital transformational heaven.

“IBM has built industry-leading hybrid cloud, AI and security capabilities underpinned by deep industry expertise,” said IBM CEO Ginni Rometty. “Together, IBM and Vodafone will use the power of the hybrid cloud to securely integrate critical business applications, driving business innovation – from agriculture to next-generation retail.”

“Vodafone has successfully established its cloud business to help our customers succeed in a digital world,” said Vodafone CEO Nick Read. “This strategic venture with IBM allows us to focus on our strengths in fixed and mobile technologies, whilst leveraging IBM’s expertise in multi-cloud, AI and services. Through this new venture we’ll accelerate our growth and deepen engagement with our customers while driving radical simplification and efficiency in our business.”

The issue which many organizations are facing today, according to Vodafone, is the complexity of the digital business model. On average, 70% of organizations are operating in as many as 15 different cloud environments, leaning on the individuals USPs of each, but marrying these environments is a complex, but not new, issue.

Back in September, we had the chance to speak to Sachin Sony of Equinix about the emerging Data Transfer Project, an initiative to create interoperability and commonalities between the different cloud environments. The project is currently working to build a common framework with open-source code that can connect any two online service providers, enabling a seamless, direct, user-initiated portability of data between the two platforms This seems to be the same idea which the new IBM/Vodafone partnership is looking to tackle.

With this new joint-venture it’ll be interesting to figure out whether the team can build a proposition which will be any good. Vodafone has promised the new business will operate with a ‘start-up’ mentality, whatever that means when you take away the PR stench, under one roof. Hopefully the walk will be far enough away from each of the parent companies’ offices to ensure the neutral ground can foster genuine innovation.

This is a partnership which has potential. The pair have identified a genuine issue in the industry and are not attempting to solve it alone. Many people will bemoan the number of partnerships in the segment which seem to be nothing more than a feeble attempt to score PR points, but this is an example where expertise is being married to split the spoils.