Google Cloud and Ericsson has announced a partnership to jointly develop 5G and edge cloud solutions to help communications service providers (CSPs) digitally transform and to unlock new enterprise and consumer use cases.

Globally, industries with edge presences – including communication service providers, retailers, manufacturers, transport businesses, healthcare and media/entertainment providers – face pressures to build more digitized businesses and new digital experiences for their customers.

To help businesses address this shift, Google Cloud and Ericsson are working together to develop new solutions at Ericsson’s Silicon Valley D-15 Labs, a state-of-the-art innovation center where advanced solutions and technologies can be developed and tested on a live, multi-layers 5G platform.

Ericsson and Google Cloud have already completed functional onboarding of Ericsson 5G on Anthos to enable telco edge and on-premise use cases for CSPs and enterprises.

As part of the partnership, Google Cloud and Ericsson are also piloting enterprise applications at the edge on a live network with TIM. The project, which will automate the functions of TIM’s core 5G network and cloud-based applications, will use TIM’s Telco Cloud infrastructure, Google Cloud solutions and Ericsson’s 5G core network and orchestration technologies.

The joint offerings will help enterprises in the automotive, transportation, manufacturing and other sectors improve efficiencies and lower latency by bringing connectivity close to companies’ physical locations.

Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud, says: “Organizations have a tremendous opportunity to digitally transform their businesses with 5G and cloud capabilities like artificial intelligence and machine learning at the edge. We are proud to partner with Ericsson to help build a foundation for communications service providers and enterprises alike to take advantage of cloud technology and cloud-native services, from telecom network core to the  edge and enterprise premises.”

Niklas Heuveldop, President and Head of Ericsson North America, says: “5G is a powerful innovation platform. Combined with edge cloud capabilities, 5G has the potential to accelerate the digital transformation of virtually any sector of industry or society. We are excited about our partnership with Google Cloud as we engage with our customers to leverage our combined capabilities to solve real-world business challenges for the benefit of consumers, enterprises and society at large.”

Ericsson and Google previously formed a services partnership to enable the digital transformation of operator networks and application migration through cloud-native, container-based solutions.

Under the terms of the agreement, NCR will expand cloud availability of its Digital Banking software portfolio, including NCR Channel Services for retail banking as well as its card and payments processing platform NCR Authentic.

“This initiative expands the cloud deployment options for NCR’s customers, making it easier and faster for financial institutions to bring new digital banking services to market and accelerate digital transformations with confidence,” said Frank Hauck, President and General Manager of NCR Banking. “Financial institutions will benefit from NCR’s depth of banking industry experience along with the trusted, secure cloud platform provided by Google Cloud.”

NCR and Google Cloud will collaborate on product development and innovation to further enhance the suite of cloud-based solutions and analytics available to banking customers on Google Cloud. Google Cloud is a leading infrastructure, platform and industry solutions provider, helping businesses solve their most critical problems across 200 countries. With the ubiquitous Google Cloud, NCR’s customers will gain a leading solution for powerful computing, data storage and powerful analytics, and business insight.

“We’re partnering with NCR to help accelerate the digital transformation of financial services organizations,” said Derek White, vice president, Global Financial Services at Google Cloud. “Bringing NCR’s widely adopted digital banking software onto Google Cloud means financial institutions can leverage scalable, secure cloud infrastructure, with the flexibility to deploy new, cloud-native solutions across on-premises, hybrid cloud, and as-a-service models, enabling them to deliver exceptional customer experiences.” 

Located in Lagos, Nigeria, ICIT (Internet, Communications & IT Solutions) is an experienced information technology solutions provider with a mission to efficiently empower businesses to achieve more with less using automation.

 ICIT, provides both SMEs and Enterprise level businesses with affordable and trusted Managed IT services and business process automation solutions to help them operate effectively. The company’s primary goal is to help clients build systems where business productivity is optimized, profitability is increased, and peace of mind is guaranteed.

Mr. Kamar Oyenuga, Managing Director, ICIT Solutions Limited noted that, “We are excited to announce our partnership with 9Mobilie Nigeria to launch this first-in-class cloud solutions e-commerce platform 9Business Cloud for organizations of all sizes. Whether you are an organization of 1 or 10,000 employees, we have something for you to enable you manage and run your business from anywhere”.

Kamar in his statement mentioned that, “the 9business platform https://cloudbusiness.9mobile.com.ng/, caters to anyone, whether a 9Mobile subscriber or not, looking to purchase cloud-based products and solutions. The 9Business Cloud market place has affordable software products like Microsoft 365 which helps you to run your business from everywhere in a cost-effective manner, Microsoft teams for improved productivity and employee collaboration, One Note, One Drive for data and file storage online with up to 1TB worth space. Also available are SharePoint, Dynamics 365 for customer engagement and personalized service on any channel, recruitment, employee development, financial management, improved customer experiences, and improved marketing, and many more”. 

He further stressed that, “This is an innovative way for modern businesses to cut-away unnecessary cost while also achieving optimal results for a more sustainable business operation. It’s simple, quick, secure, stress-free and affordable. Having identified that the core need of any organization is to ensure that every stakeholder has peace of mind which emanates from the profitability of the company, ICIT Solutions has positioned its offerings to support such businesses that aim to attain profitability that will in turn, increase their value”.

For over a decade, ICIT Solution has been creating a sustainable and highly secured automated business solutions for companies, by engaging the businesses to understand their processes and help them break processes to measurable workflows that are automatable with the necessary support. It’s services include delivering End to End intelligent Managed IT services, fully-fledged business automation process support like software license sales and renewals, design and customization of process flows that will efficiently empower businesses to achieve more, data migration and protection, staff training and support and much more. It has also brought great value to the cloud solution offerings of 9mobile Telecommunication in Nigeria.