| Type | Publicly traded Aktiebolag |
|---|---|
| Traded as | OMX: ERIC B, NASDAQ: ERIC |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | Stockholm, Sweden (1876) |
| Founder(s) | Lars Magnus Ericsson |
| Headquarters | Kista, Stockholm, Sweden |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Leif Johansson (Chairman), Hans Vestberg (President and CEO), Jacob Wallenberg (Deputy Chairman), Sverker Martin-Löf (Deputy Chairman) |
| Products | Mobile and fixed broadband networks, consultancy and managed services, multimedia technology |
| Revenue | SEK 203.35 billion (2010)[1] |
| Operating income | SEK 16.45 billion (2010)[1] |
| Profit | SEK 11.15 billion (2010)[1] |
| Total assets | SEK 281.8 billion (end 2010)[1] |
| Total equity | SEK 145.1 billion (end 2010)[1] |
| Employees | 90,260 (end 2010)[1] |
| Subsidiaries | ST-Ericsson (50%) LG-Ericsson (50%) |
| Website | Ericsson.com |
Ericsson (Telefonaktiebolaget L. M. Ericsson) (OMX: ERIC B, NASDAQ: ERIC), one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks. Ericsson is currently the world's largest mobile telecommunications equipment vendor with a market share of 35%.
Directly and through subsidiaries, Ericsson also has a major role in mobile devices and cable TV and IPTV systems. Ericsson was also the inventor of Bluetooth.
Founded in 1876 as a telegraph equipment repair shop by Lars Magnus Ericsson, it was incorporated on August 18, 1918. Headquartered in Kista, Stockholm Municipality, since 2003, Ericsson is considered part of the so-called "Wireless Valley". Since the mid-1990s, Ericsson's extensive presence in Stockholm has helped transform the city into one of Europe's hubs of information technology (IT) research. Ericsson has offices and operations in more than 180 countries, with more than 17,700 staff in Sweden, and also significant presences in, for example, Brazil, China, Finland, India, Ireland, Italy, Hungary, the UK and the US.
In the early 20th century, Ericsson dominated the world market for manual telephone exchanges but was late to introduce automatic equipment. The world's largest ever manual telephone exchange, serving 60,000 lines, was installed by Ericsson in Moscow in 1916. Throughout the 1990s, Ericsson held a 35-40% market share of installed cellular telephone systems. Like most of the telecommunications industry, Ericsson suffered heavy losses after the telecommunications crash in the early 2000s, and had to lay off tens of thousands of staff worldwide in an attempt to manage the financial situation, returning to profit by the mid-2000s.
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Lars Magnus Ericsson began his association with telephones in his youth as an instrument maker. He worked for a firm which made telegraph equipment for the Swedish government agency Telegrafverket. In 1876, aged 30, he started a telegraph repair shop with help from his friend Carl Johan Andersson. The shop was in central Stockholm (No. 15 on Drottninggatan, the principal shopping street) and repaired foreign-made telephones. In 1878 Ericsson began making and selling his own telephone equipment. His phones were not technically innovative, as most of the inventions had already been made in the US. In 1878, he made an agreement to supply telephones and switchboards to Sweden's first telecom operating company, Stockholms Allmänna Telefonaktiebolag.
Also in 1878, local telephone importer Numa Peterson hired Ericsson to adjust some telephones from the Bell Telephone Company. This inspired him to buy a number of Siemens telephones and analyze the technology further. (Ericsson had a scholarship at Siemens a few years earlier.) Through his firm's repair work for Telegrafverket and Swedish Railways, he was familiar with Bell and Siemens Halske telephones. He improved these designs to produce a higher quality instrument. These were used by new telephone companies, such as Rikstelefon, to provide cheaper service than the Bell Group. He had no patent or royalty problems, as Bell had not patented their inventions in Scandinavia. His training as an instrument maker was reflected in the high standard of finish and the ornate design which made Ericsson phones of this period so attractive to collectors. At the end of the year he started to manufacture telephones of his own, much in the image of the Siemens telephones, and the first product was finished in 1879.
With its reputation established, Ericsson became a major supplier of telephone equipment to Scandinavia. Because its factory could not keep up with demand, work such as joinery and metal-plating was contracted out. Much of its raw materials were imported, so in the following decades Ericsson bought into a number of firms to ensure supplies of essentials like brass, wire, ebonite and magnet steel. Much of the walnut used for cabinets was imported from the US.
As Stockholm's telephone network expanded rapidly that year, the company reformed into a telephone manufacturing company. But when Bell bought the biggest telephone network in Stockholm, it only allowed its own telephones to be used with it. So Ericsson's equipment sold mainly to free telephone associations in the Swedish countryside and in the other Nordic countries.
The high prices of Bell equipment and services led Henrik Tore Cedergren to form an independent telephone company in 1883 called Stockholms Allmänna Telefonaktiebolag. As Bell would not deliver equipment to competitors, he formed a pact with Ericsson, which was to supply the equipment for his new telephone network. In 1918 the companies were merged into Allmänna Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson.
In 1884, a multiple-switchboard manual telephone exchange was more or less copied from a design by C. E. Scribner at Western Electric. This was legal, as the device was not patented in Sweden, although in the US it held patent 529421 since 1879. A single switchboard could handle up to 10,000 lines. The following year, LM Ericsson and Cedergren toured the US, visiting several telephone exchange stations to gather "inspiration". They found that US engineers were well ahead in switchboard design but Ericsson telephones were as good as any available.
In 1884, a technician named Anton Avén at Stockholms Allmänna Telefonaktiebolag had combined the earpiece and the mouthpiece of a (by then) standard telephone into a handset. It was used by operators in the exchanges that needed to have one hand free when talking to their customers. Ericsson picked up this invention and incorporated it into Ericsson products, beginning with a telephone named The Dachshund.
As production grew in the late 1890s, and the Swedish market seemed to be reaching saturation, Ericsson was able to expand into foreign markets through a number of agents. Britain and Russia were early markets. This eventually led to the establishment of factories in these countries. This was partly to improve chances of gaining local contracts, and partly because the Swedish factory could not keep up supply. In Britain, the National Telephone Company had been supplied with Ericsson equipment for some time and was a major customer. By 1897, Britain was accounting for 28% of Ericsson's sales. Other Nordic countries had become Ericsson customers as well, spurred by the rapid growth of telephone services in Sweden.
Other countries and colonies were exposed to Ericsson products through the influence of their parent countries. These included Australia and New Zealand, which by the late 1890s were Ericsson's largest non-European market. With mass production techniques now firmly established, the phones were losing some of their ornate finish and decoration.
Despite their successes elsewhere, Ericsson did not make significant sales into the United States. The Bell Group and local companies like Kellogg and Automatic Electric had this market tied up. Ericsson eventually sold its US assets. In contrast, sales in Mexico were good and led to further development into South American countries. South Africa and China were also generating significant sales. With his company now multinational, and growing strongly, Lars Ericsson stepped down from the company in 1901.
In a curious oversight, Ericsson ignored the growth of automatic telephony in the US. Instead it concentrated on squeezing the most sales out of manual exchange designs. By 1910, this weakness was becoming seriously apparent, and the company spent the years up to 1920 correcting the situation. Their first dial phone was produced in 1921, although sales of the early automatic switching systems were slow until the equipment had proved itself on the world's markets. Phones of this period were characterized by a simpler design and finish, and many of the early automatic desk phones in Ericsson's catalogues were simply the proven magneto styles with a dial stuck on the front and appropriate changes to the electronics. A concession to style was in the elaborate decals (transfers) that decorated the cases. These phones have been also highly collectable and attractive.
World War I, the subsequent Great Depression, and the loss of its Russian assets after the Revolution slowed the company's development and restricted its sales to countries such as Australia.
The purchase of other related companies put pressure on Ericsson's finances, and in 1925, Karl Fredric Wincrantz took control of the company by acquiring the majority of the shares. Wincrantz was partly funded by Ivar Kreuger, an international financier. The company was renamed Telefon AB LM Ericsson. At this time, Kreuger started showing interest in the company, being a major owner of Wincrantz holding companies.
In 1928, Ericsson began its long tradition of "A" and "B" shares, where an "A" share has 1000 votes against a "B" share. Wincrantz controlled the company by having only a few "A" shares, not a majority of the shares. By issuing a lot of "B" shares, much more money was fed to the company, while maintaining the status quo of power distribution.
In 1930, a second issue of "B"-shares took place, and Kreuger gained majority control of the company with a mixture of "A" and "B" shares. He bought these shares with money lent by LM Ericsson, with security given in German state bonds. He then took a large loan for his own company Kreuger & Toll from ITT Corporation (administered by Sosthenes Behn), giving large parts of LM Ericsson as security, and used its assets and name in a series of doubtful international financial dealings that had little to do with telephony.
Financially weakened, Ericsson was now being seen as a take over target by ITT, its main international competitor. In 1931 ITT acquired from Kreuger enough shares to have a majority interest in Ericsson. This news was not made public for some time. There was a government imposed limit on foreign shareholdings in Swedish companies, so for the time being the shares were still listed in Kreuger's name. Kreuger in return was to gain shares in ITT. He stood to make a profit of $11 million on the deal. When ITT's Behn wanted to cancel this deal in 1932, he discovered that there was no money left in the company, just a large claim on the same Kreuger & Toll that Kreuger had himself lent money to. Kreuger had effectively bought LM Ericsson with its own money.
With Kreuger no longer in control, the company's shaky financial position became quickly evident. Kreuger had been using the company as security for loans, and despite his profits, was unable to repay these loans. Ericsson found that they had invested in some very doubtful share deals, whose losses were deemed significant. ITT examined the deal and found that it had been seriously misled about Ericsson's value. ITT asked Kreuger to come to New York City for a conference, but Kreuger had a "breakdown". As word of Kreuger's financial position spread, pressure was put on him by the banking institutions to provide security for his loans. ITT canceled the deal to buy Ericsson shares. Kreuger could not repay the $11 million, and committed suicide in Paris in 1932. ITT owned one third of Ericsson, but was forbidden to exercise this ownership because of a paragraph in the company's articles of association stating that no foreign investor was allowed to control more than 20% of the votes.
Ericsson, a basically stable and profitable company, was only saved from bankruptcy and closure with help of loyal banks and some government backing. Marcus Wallenberg Jr negotiated a deal with several Swedish banks to rebuild Ericsson financially. Some of those were Stockholms Enskilda Bank (after a later merger part of the present Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken) and other Swedish investment banks controlled by the Wallenberg family. The banks gradually increased their possession of LM Ericsson "A" shares, with ITT still being the single largest shareholder. In 1960 the Wallenberg family struck a deal with ITT to buy its shares in Ericsson, and has since controlled the company.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the world telephone markets were being organized and stabilized by many governments. The fragmented town-by-town systems which had grown up over the years, serviced by many small private companies, were integrated and offered for lease to a single company. Ericsson managed to obtain some leases, which was vital to the company as it represented further sales of equipment to the growing networks. The other large telephone companies, of course, had exactly the same goal. Ericsson managed to get almost one third of its sales under the control of its telephone operating companies.
There were a number of negotiations between the major telephone companies aimed at dividing up the world between them, but the sheer size of the ITT empire made it hard to compete with. With its financial problems, Ericsson was forced to reduce its involvement in telephone operating companies and go back to what it did best, manufacturing telephones and switchgear. It could do this easily now, thanks to its overseas manufacturing facilities and its associated supply companies. These had not been involved in the previous shady financial dealings and were generally in a sound position. The Beeston factory in Britain became a very useful asset here. It had been a joint venture between Ericsson and the National Telephone Company. The factory built automatic switching equipment for the BPO under license from Strowger, and exported a large amount of product to former colonies like South Africa and Australia. The British government divided its equipment contracts between competing manufacturers, but Ericsson's presence and manufacturing facilities in Britain allowed it to get most of the contracts. Ericsson equipment maintained its reputation for quality.
Sales drives resumed after the Great Depression, but the company never achieved the market penetration that it had at the turn of the century. Although it still produced a full range of phones, switching equipment was becoming a more important part of its range. The distinctive Ericsson styles soon became subdued by the increasing use of moulded thermoplastic phones (Bakelite, etc.).
Following the advent of football shirt sponsorship during the 1980s, Ericsson sponsored two English football clubs during the 1990s - Brentford and Queen's Park Rangers.
Yet, Ericsson remained a world telecommunications leader. It introduced the world's first fully automatic mobile telephone system, MTA in 1956.[2] It released one of the world's first handsfree speaker phones in the 1960s. In 1954, it released the Ericofon, which was such a radical departure in styling that it has been highly collectable. Ericsson crossbar switching equipment is the mainstay of many telephone administrations around the world, and its influence is still felt strongly in such areas as mobile phones with its reputation for quality.
As the Internet and wireless telephony began to merge during the turn of the century, Motorola (US), Ericsson, and Nokia (Finland) announced plans to develop standards jointly for the security of electronic transactions over mobile devices in 2000. In May 2000 the European Commission created the Wireless Strategic Initiative,[3] a consortium of four leading telecommunications suppliers in Europe — Ericsson, Nokia, France-based Alcatel, and German Siemens AG — to develop and test new prototypes for advanced wireless communications systems. After meeting with an international think tank, the consortium partners in December 2000 invited other companies to join them in a Wireless World Research Forum held in 2001.
In 2000, the bursting of the information technology bubble had marked economic implications for Sweden. Ericsson, the world's largest producer of mobile telecommunications equipment, shed thousands of jobs, as did the country's once fast-expanding Internet consulting firms and dot-com start-ups. In 2000, Intel Corp., the world's largest chip manufacturer, signed a $1.5 billion deal to supply flash memory to LM Ericsson over the next three years.
In December 1999 Microsoft and Ericsson announced a strategic partnership with later the goal to create together an joint venture with a technology transfer where Ericsson provided its WAP protocol stack to Microsoft and Ericsson will adopt Microsoft Mobile Explorer in their new featured phones.[4][5][6][7][8] The strategic partnership was then extended in September 2000 and the two companies created the joint venture called Ericsson Microsoft Mobile Venture AB owned with 70% by Ericsson and respectively 30% by Microsoft.[9]
Although Ericsson formed on October 1, 2001 the handsets division into a joint venture with Sony called Sony Ericsson,[10][11] they overtook full control of the joint venture with Microsoft on October 5, 2001.[9][12] Ericsson is now a major provider of handset cores and an infrastructure supplier for all major wireless technologies. It has played an important global role in modernizing existing copper lines to offer broadband services and has actively grown a new line of business in the professional illion deal in China with local operators China Mobile Communications Corp and China Unicom.[13]
In 2001 telecommunications companies around the world experienced a year of tumbling stock prices and huge job losses. By September the stock market valuation of the world's telecom carriers and suppliers had declined by $3.8 trillion from a peak of $6.3 trillion in March 2000. More than a quarter of a million jobs were lost globally in the second quarter of 2001 alone. The major equipment manufacturers — Motorola (US), Lucent Technologies (US), and Cisco Systems (US), Marconi (UK), Siemens AG (Germany), Nokia (Finland), as well as Ericsson — all announced job cuts both in their home countries and in subsidiaries around the world. Some of the biggest losses were announced by the Canadian supplier Nortel Networks Ltd., which shed 50% of its workforce (almost 50,000 jobs), while in France equipment manufacturer Alcatel cut 33,000 jobs (almost a third of its employees).
Financially, 2002 was even worse for the global Internet and telecommunications industry than the previous year had been due the excesses of the investment bubbles. LM Ericsson, Royal KPN NV, Vodafone Group PLC, and Deutsche Telekom AG experienced the biggest losses in corporate history. The telecommunications sector's problems brought bankruptcies and job losses, and led to changes in the leadership of a number of major companies. The most high-profile victim in 2002 was Ericsson, then the world's largest producer of wireless telecom systems, as it was forced to let go thousands of staff and raise about $3 billion from its shareholders.
In June 2002, Infineon Technologies AG (then the sixth largest semiconductor supplier and a subsidiary of Siemens AG) bought the microelectronics unit of LM Ericsson for €400 million.
In October 2005, LM Ericsson acquired the bulk of the troubled British telecoms manufacturer Marconi, including the Marconi brand name, which dates back to the creation of the original Marconi Company by the "father of radio" Guglielmo Marconi. In September 2006, LM Ericsson sold the greater part of its defense business Ericsson Microwave Systems, which mainly produced sensor and radar systems, to Saab AB, which renamed the company to Saab Microwave Systems. The sale meant that Saab Ericsson Space, previously a joint venture, is now fully owned by Saab. Not included in the sale to Saab was the National Security & Public Safety division, which was transferred to Ericsson with the sale. In November 2006, LM Ericsson purchased the UIQ software business for smartphones from Symbian.
In January 2007, LM Ericsson completed the merger of its indirect wholly owned subsidiary, Maxwell Acquisition Corporation, with and into Redback Networks Inc. (Redback), with Redback surviving the merger as a wholly owned subsidiary of LM Ericsson. In February 2007, LM Ericsson acquired Entrisphere, a company providing fiber access technology, based in the United States. In September 2007, LM Ericsson acquired an 84% interest in German software firm, LHS Telekom Inc., a stake since raised to 87.5%.
In July 2009, Ericsson acquired Nortel's wireless-equipment unit at price $1.13 billion in cash, the unit mainly include CDMA2000 and LTE. Other companies, also bidding for it included Nokia Siemens Networks and MatlinPatterson Global Advisors.
On February 18, 2008, it was announced that Aastra Technologies would acquire the enterprise PBX division of Ericsson.[14]
June 2011: Ericsson made an acquisition of Telcordia Technologies to add more software and service support offerings for 1.2 billion in a cash transaction and on a debt-free basis.[15]
Major competitors today include, in the main business, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks and ZTE, with Cisco, IBM, EDS, Accenture, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG Electronics, NEC, Sharp and most recently Apple Inc., competing with aspects of the business.
Current members of the board of directors of LM Ericsson are: Leif Johansson, Jacob Wallenberg, Sverker Martin-Löf, Roxanne S. Austin, Sir Peter L. Bonfield, Börje Ekholm, Ulf J. Johansson, Nancy McKinstry, Anders Nyrén, Carl-Henric Svanberg, Hans Vestberg, Michelangelo Volpi, Pehr Claesson, Jan Hedlund, Karin Åberg, Kristina Davidsson, Karin Lennartsson and Roger Svensson.[16]
LM Ericsson offers end-to-end solutions for all major mobile communication standards, and has three main business units.
In addition, there is a very substantial research and development element, and a range of central functions. Operations locally are coordinated through a structure of regions and Market Units, with some Global and Multi-Country Accounts for large customers.
LM Ericsson provides mobile systems solutions to network operators. Its systems offerings include radio base stations, base station and radio network controllers, mobile switching centers and service application nodes. Its end-to-end solutions offer operators a network migration to 3G.
Ericsson provides mobile telecommunications systems that incorporate any of the major second-generation (2G) (global system for mobile communications (GSM), time division multiple access (TDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA)), 2.5G (General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)) and 3G (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA), High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), Evolved HSPA (HSPA+, I-HSPA), Evcode division multiple access (third generation cellular/radio technology) (CDMA2000), time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA)) mobile technology standards. It is able to offer tailored solutions to a network operator, regardless of the existing network standard used. Ericsson is actively involved in the development of standards for the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) of 3G. Through network operators Ericsson offers service to over two billion customers worldwide.
The expansion of Ericsson's fixed broadband offering is an important step to address network operators as they begin integrating their fixed and mobile networks. It supplies broadband multi-service communications equipment and services mainly to fixed network operators in Latin America and Europe. Its solution for such multi-service networks utilizes a layered soft-switch service and control architecture, combined with broadband access and core network routing and transmission elements. Fixed network equipment and associated network rollout services account for 7% of Systems sales.
LM Ericsson offers radio base stations ranging from small pico cells (small cells in a mobile network that boost capacity and coverage within buildings) to high-capacity macro cell applications. Radio base stations provide access and interconnection between mobile handsets and the mobile network. A central feature of the 2G GSM radio base stations and base station controllers is their ability to be upgraded to enable 2.5G/GPRS and 2.75G/EDGE transmissions. Similarly, its W-CDMA base stations can be upgraded to HSDPA.
Other elements of the radio access networks are the controllers for radio base stations and radio access network, which manage the traffic between the radio base stations and core networks. In 2G, base station controllers in conjunction with mobile switching centers, effect call handovers between radio base stations as subscribers move between cell sites while engaged in a voice call or data transmission. Similarly, in 3G networks, a radio network controller effects call handover in conjunction with mobility server nodes within the service layer.
The core network nodes interconnect radio access networks with other parts of the network. Many of the core network switching systems, controllers for base stations and radio networks are built upon common platforms. Like its radio base station products, LM Ericsson's mobile switching products have scalability and capacity. Mobile network equipment and associated network rollout services account for approximately 74% of its sales.
Ericsson's core network solutions include the mobile softswitch, IP infrastructure, IMS, media gateways, Mobile Packet Backbone Network (MPBN) and microwave and optical transport solutions to provide management of voice and data traffic.
Ericsson Network Technologies (Cables) unit provides a range of cable-related items for telecom and power networks. LM Ericsson is engaged in the passive fiber access network field including integration of copper, fiber optic and mobile technologies. About a third of the sales from its Cables group is attributable to inter-segment sales. Manufacturing is carried out in China, India, Malaysia and Sweden.
Ericsson Power Modules is a supplier of direct current (DC)/DC converters and DC/DC regulators, mainly to the communications industry, for advanced applications, such as multiplexors, switches, routers and radio base stations. Manufacturing is in China.
Ericsson Microwave Systems designed radar systems and was eventually sold to Saab AB on September 1, 2006 as a move to focus on telecom and move out of the military market.
Business Unit Multimedia was established in 2007. Multimedia’s operations are divided into three operation areas: Business Support Systems (BSS); TV & Media; and Consumer & Business Applications.
Business Unit Multimedia is mainly a software business, and has about 4000 employees worldwide.[17]
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB (Sony Ericsson) delivers mobile phones, accessories and personal computer (PC) cards. Sony Ericsson is responsible for product design and development, as well as marketing, sales, distribution and customer services. About one-third of Sony Ericsson's handsets are produced at their factory in China. The remaining two-thirds of production is more or less equally split between contract manufacturers (EMS) and other device manufacturers (ODM) at locations in several countries in Asia, Latin America and Europe, mainly Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Slovakia, Germany, and Malaysia in that order.
Since the joint venture Sony Ericsson started in 2001, Ericsson does not make cellular phones by itself anymore. Previous models include the following:
Ericsson Mobile Platforms is a supplier of technology platforms for GSM/EDGE and WCDMA/HSPA platforms used in devices, such as mobile handsets and PC cards. Through Ericsson Mobile Platforms, LM Ericsson licenses open-standard, end-to-end interoperability tested GSM/EDGE and WCDMA technology platforms. The product offerings include reference designs, platform software, application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs and development boards, development and test tools, training, support and documentation. Ericsson Mobile Platforms has operations at nine global locations, with main operations in Sweden.
Ericsson Enterprise provides communications systems and services for businesses, public entities and educational institutions. It addresses a variety of enterprise needs through segmented offerings for both small and large enterprises. It focuses on providing solutions for voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)-based private branch exchanges (PBX), wireless local area networks (WLAN), and mobile intranet solutions. With Mobile Enterprise, users on the move are able to access a range of business-critical communications and information applications from a variety of devices over private or public, fixed or wireless networks. Ericsson Enterprise operates mainly from Sweden but has a global presence through the market units and other partners/distributors. Manufacturing is outsourced. In 2008, Ericsson Enterprise business is sold to Aastra, a global company at the forefront of the Enterprise Communication market.
Ericsson is the world's largest telecom services provider and the strength in telecom services has a strong correlation with the company's technology leadership, R&D achievements and long tradition of innovation. The services portfolio includes expertise in the areas of consulting, systems integration, managed services, network deployment and integration, education and support services. That includes planning, building, deploying, optimizing, running networks and solutions for customers as well as providing strategy-, technology-, network-, operations- and competence consultancy services.
The Company offers managed services capabilities within the telecom industry. Its offerings cover management of day-to-day operations of a customer's network (Home internet Solution), including a managed capacity service for a network build out and on-demand capacity, as well as hosting of applications and content management. Ericsson's services organization has over 30,000 service professionals working in 175 countries.
Ericsson has the telecom industry's most comprehensive managed services offering. It ranges from designing, building, operating and managing day-to-day operations of a customer's network, including end-user services and business-support systems, to hosting service applications and content, as well as providing network coverage and capacity on demand. As the undisputed leader in managed services, Ericsson has officially announced more than 100 contracts for managed services with operators worldwide since 2002. In all current managed services contracts, excluding hosting, Ericsson is managing networks that together serve more than 225 million subscribers worldwide. In September 2009 Ericsson assumed the day to day operations of Sprint Nextel's wireline and wireless networks.[19] As of 2010 Ericsson has offered to assume ownership of customer's networks in addition to managing them.
Ericsson provides support to its customers to maximize network availability and secure long-term evolution. This includes both a preventative and corrective approach.
Ericsson’s offering for support services combines technology leadership with a mix of global and local resources.
The support portfolio covers everything from spare parts management to supporting customized software in order to:
Ericsson's Systems integrations offering currently consists of seven distinct service offerings.
Ericsson covers strategy-, technology-, network-, operations- and competence consulting.
Ericsson identifies and addresses opportunities and challenges arising from market developments, technology shifts and efficiency demands.
Ericsson’s network roll-out services employ a mix of in-house capabilities, subcontractors and central resources to perform the task of making changes in live networks.
The service offering provides solutions for access, core and transport networks, as well as in-building solutions, irrespective of vendor.
Ericsson customizes service offerings include:
Ericsson was instrumental, as an official backer, in the launch of the .mobi top level domain created specifically for the mobile internet.[20] Since the launch of .mobi in September 2006, Ericsson has launched Ericsson.mobi, its mobile portal, and SonyEricsson.mobi, the mobile portal of Sony Ericsson. Additionally, Ericsson hosts a developer program called Ericsson Developer Connection, designed to encourage fast development of applications and services.[21] Ericsson also has an open innovation initiative for beta applications and beta API's & tools called Ericsson Labs.
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