The so-called white label portals are integrated and hosted by Ericsson under a managed services agreement, which means operators can quickly introduce best-selling consumer services under their own brands and retain control of their customer relationships. Consumers will easily access the portals and services from their mobile phones and other handheld devices. Furthermore, content distribution and digital rights management are included in Ericsson's hosting offering.

"We perform 20,000 individual extensive consumer interviews every year, collecting unique consumer insights. This gives us a very good understanding of what consumers around the world want. By continuously screening and analyzing the market, we know which services will attract consumers and generate revenue for operators," said Hans Vestberg, Executive Vice President, Business Unit Global Services, Ericsson "Being the world leader in telecommunications equipment and services, we are bringing all our experience in selecting, integrating and hosting consumer services to the benefit of operators."

Managing numerous content partnerships, digital rights management, systems integration of consumer services and technical management of platforms is costly and time consuming for operators. By partnering with Ericsson, operators can focus on their core businesses and launch innovative consumer services within six weeks of contract signing.

The extended hosting offering reinforces the trend towards managed services in which operators and vendors work as partners to reduce costs, improve network quality and bring new services to market as quickly as possible.

"Ericsson is the driving and facilitating force in taking the rapidly growing mobile content business forward together with our customers," said Vestberg. "We work closely with operators and the media industry to achieve fast, simple and cost-efficient introduction of attractive mobile content offerings for consumers worldwide."

Hosting is part of Ericsson's industry-leading managed services offering, and Ericsson has officially announced around 20 hosting contracts. Services hosted by Ericsson are in commercial operation for many operators around the world. For example, Ericsson's mobile music service M-USE is today in commercial operation with more operators than any other personalized mobile music service in the world.

 

Josephine Edwall-Björklund, Ericsson Communications

Phone: +46 70 519 16 98, +46 8 719 69 92

E-mail: press.relations@ericsson.com

 

 

Ericsson's managed services offering covers management of day-to-day operations of a customer's network and can also include managed capacity for efficient network build out wherever and whenever needed, as well as hosting of applications and content management. As the undisputed industry leader in managed services, Ericsson has officially announced 35 managed services contracts with operators worldwide since 2002. In all current managed services contracts, excluding hosting, Ericsson is managing networks that together serve over 35 million subscribers worldwide.