Ericsson CEO: Goal is to drive growth, innovation, speed
Nearly four months into a hyped partnership, Ericsson and Cisco executives report a “huge amount of progress in a very short amount of time,” as Cisco chief strategy officer Hilton Romanski put it.
Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg said the “strategic partnership” was designed to create “growth, innovation and speed,” for both companies with the goal of $1 billion in sales for both companies by 2018.
Romanski, without offering details, called out 200 “active engagements … with customers in every single region around the world,” adding there have been “multiple wins … wins in multiple regions where we’re focused on IP backhaul, data center architecture transformation” and TV/cable projects.
Ericsson CSO Rima Qureshi outlined six focus areas, four hardware-based, two services-based: mobile backhaul; IP core; business VPN and fixed cable/broadband access for hardware; and IP/IT managed services and IP transformation. Oureshi pointed out the first joint Ericsson/Cisco solution – the Dynamic Service Manager, launched during Mobile World Congress – as the first product of joint research and development.
That new product combines Ericsson operating systems support and network management solutions with Cisco’s IP core, enterprise VPN and multivendor mobile backhaul technology.
“As we talk about the 200 engagements,” Qureshi said, “there’s a lot of customer interest on the joint solutions we’ve been talking about.”
“We feel all of us, including Cisco, that we have very good traction on this partnership,” Vestberg added.
