The Converged Future of Nokia Siemens

The amalgamation of the network divisions of Nokia and Siemens follows the tie-ups between major sellers Alcatel and Lucent as well as Ericsson and Marconi.

Nokia Siemens CEO-designate, Simon Beresford-Wylie, told at the 3GSM World Congress here in Barcelona the future company was’day one ready’ and spotted that its mixed product portfolio was being shown to consumers for the 1st time last week.

Other areas where costs can be shaved include procurement, a rationalisation of sales and selling functions, consolidated IT systems and property.

‘We need to lose the religion,’ he announced, noting the future company would have a portfolio that encompassed a large range of wireless technologies including GSM, CDMA and WiMAX. Open standards would be necessary to its future product rollouts, he asserted, and he advised that tries to create an exclusive and closed mobile Web during the past were misguided. ‘There is only 1 Web and I believe we misunderstood that as a business. Services and content [in the future] will come mostly from the Net and we must understand that,’ Beresford-Wylie explained. The future Boss also revealed trends thru until 2015, with the combined entity expecting the amount of’connected’ users to double to five bn..

He was expecting more of these to be broadband-enabled, noting that today we’re’still living in a world that is narrowband.’ He also anticipated users in rising markets to make the transition to broadband faster thanks to new technologies like WiMAX.

‘Broadband in the third world will not take decades but will occur in the following couple of years,’ he advised. Commenting on the future company’s new brand, Beresford-Wylie recounted that it was a mirrored image of’dynamism, movement and renewal.’ Like the telco world’s other recent alliance, Alcatel-Lucent, the emblem of Nokia Siemens uses a wave shape and purple color, in this example mixed with yellow ( Alcatel-Lucent is all purple ). However, the likenesses end there, according to Beresford-Wylie, who advised the 2 companies’ similar cultures and walking distance in Europe would make it a better fit than one enterprise from Europe and another from the US. In another interview with Database, Stephan Scholz, the appointed head of study, Technology and Platforms for Nokia Siemens Networks, expounded the new company would devote equal RD resources to WiMAX as it does to conventional mobile phone technologies.

Whilst more of a longer-term initiative, the creation of modular software for OSS / BSS functions was crucial and something that was required on an industry-wide scale, according to Scholz, who designated it as one of the 1st projects he would likely start as head of analysis. He also spoke of his surprise at the extent of the present Nokia OSS / BSS platform for mobile networks, exclaiming it was’much more than I was aware of.’ Scholz, who has been working in carrier development at Siemens, advised the platform might be changed so that it could also be used for fixed and converged networks in future. Other research focusses he suggested were for carrier Ethernet assembly and a single database for customer information that is common irrespective of the application or service used. The 50:50 joint venture is predicted to have 6 business units when it commences operations : Radio Access, Service Core and Applications, Operation Support Systems, Broadband Access, IP / Transport and Services.