Ericsson partners with Amazon's web services division to help telecom operators

Telecom gear maker Ericsson has partnered Amazon's web services division (AWS) to help telecom operators use cloud services to improve productivity and efficiency.

Ericsson is working with AWS to help service providers seize opportunities like Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics and drive convergence of mobile infrastructure and cloud, the companies said. It will also give application developers and service providers new capabilities that accelerate innovation, they added.

The announcement was made at the Mobile World Congress. Delivering a keynote at the event, Ericsson President and CEO Hans Vestberg said digital disruption will come to every industry in 2016.

"Today, 66% of our business comes from software and services; just years ago the majority was hardware... Now, with industries and even whole societies being disrupted by mobility, broadband and cloud, we are accelerating our own transformation," he said.

He identified 5G, IoT and cloud as the hottest topics in the ICT industry. Using AWS' cloud, Ericsson will develop solutions to help service providers meet internal efficiency goals. Telstra is the first Ericsson customer to agree to host a joint cloud innovation center with Ericsson.

"Ericsson has always taken great ideas, industrialised them and made them available in every country. Building upon AWS' platform, we will drive new growth opportunities across the service provider industry," Ericsson Head of Business Unit - Cloud and IP, Anders Lindblad said.