AT&T has opened its fourth Foundry location for established companies and start-ups to develop new products and services. The Foundry location in Atlanta is hosted by Cisco Systems, and will focus on connected home technology. mobility and the Internet of things.
Paul Mankiewich, CTO and vice president of Cisco’s service provider mobility business group, said that while the company has participated in projects at AT&T’s other Foundry locations, this is its first move to sponsor a location. He described the environment as open and collaborative, with what he called a “Silicon Valley mentality” for innovative projects.
“It’s a means of coming up with new types of services and solutions that the network operator can provide to either consumer or enterprise users,” he said.
The Foundry not only offers small start-ups the chance to collaborate with large companies on their technology, but it opens up acquisition possibilities if the established company likes what it sees.
Cisco, for example, acquired self-organizing network (SON) software company Intucell for $475 million earlier this year. It first encountered the company through the Foundry, Mankiewich said, and has integrated Intucell into its Service Provider Mobility group.
“It’s a great place for people to meet small companies,” Mankiewich said. He said that the benefits are not only seeing projects become products, but also the possibility of Cisco acquiring new technologies in order to expand its reach in certain areas.
The new Foundry building is adjacent to Georgia Tech, and the school is expected to participate in some projects.
“The building is within feet of the campus; that’s a big drawing point,” Mankiewich added.
AT&T now has four Foundry locations, each with a different focus. In Palo Alto, the focus is consumer technology; in Ra’anana, Israel, the work focuses on back-office technology. The Plano, Tex. location looks at enterprise technology; AT&T says it plans to open a second Plano location for machine-to-machine technology later this year. Host sponsors for the sites include Alcatel-Lucent, Amdocs, Ericsson, Intel, Microsoft, and now Cisco.
