Month: April 2016

Ericsson and Nokia Celebrate Their Anniversaries; What Makes for Vendor Longevity?

by , posted in Vendor Transformation
David Snow - Principal Analyst, IP Services Infrastructure
David Snow – Principal Analyst, IP Services Infrastructure

Summary Bullets:                 

  • Nokia and Ericsson both celebrated company anniversaries; company longevity in telecoms is rare
  • The last decade has been particularly tumultuous and maybe Huawei is demonstrating a “third way”

A humorous tweet from CMO Barry French of Nokia a few weeks back referred to Ericsson as being “the new kid on the block” as Ericsson celebrated “140 years of innovation”. Nearly a year ago, Nokia also had an anniversary; “Nokia at 150: from pulp mill to the programmable world”.  This drew attention to a game that is periodically played between competing companies – the game of longevity.  Continue reading “Ericsson and Nokia Celebrate Their Anniversaries; What Makes for Vendor Longevity?” →

NTT DOCOMO’s vEPC Launch – The Plot Thickens

by , posted in Net Transformation, SDN/NFV, Vendor Transformation
David Snow - Principal Analyst, IP Services Infrastructure
David Snow – Principal Analyst, IP Services Infrastructure

Summary Bullets:                 

  • Late to announce its participation in NTT DOCOMO’s commercial vEPC launch, Fujitsu/Nokia pushes the projects VNFM count up to at least two.
  • More than ever before, the VNFM is attracting serious attention with carrier options for VNFM procurement multiplying.

A couple of weeks back, on March 9, NTT DOCOMO commercially launched its national vEPC infrastructure and we made some comments in this blog of March 17 around the significance of this rollout in terms of being “multi-vendor”, “NFV” and “on time”.  In particular, we noted the fact that DOCOMO had selected three vendors from an original cadre of six after several years of intense cross-vendor VNF/MANO/NFVI testing. Almost inevitably, that statement was challenged by a subsequent vendor announcement and a number of calls to Current Analysis from “the other three”. Continue reading “NTT DOCOMO’s vEPC Launch – The Plot Thickens” →