Program advances IMS innovation

Through Ericsson Developer Program and participating application developers, Ericsson is an end-to-end solutions provider, offering a portfolio of creative, useful and reliable applications to operators, who can then offer them to their customers, the end-users.

The expert center in Istanbul in Turkey is the fifth to open in a year, after Madrid in Spain, Montreal in Canada, Rome in Italy and San Paolo in Brazil.

Jörgen Odgaard, head of the Ericsson Developer Program, says Ericsson gathers local innovations from companies through the expert centers.

Odgaard says: "Ericsson is the link between operators and developers, providing the support, training, tools (Service Development Studio SDS 4.0 – the only fully comprehensive tool for the development and end-to-end testing of both the client and server side of new IMS-based applications) that assist developers in exploring new applications that utilize functionalities in the operators' domain.

"We help developers take new applications to market and can provide operators with system integration and hosting services."

IMS is a cross-industry phenomenon that is dependent on a well-functioning ecosystem. It is about cooperation between players from different industries – and by actively participating in this ecosystem, Ericsson is helping to expand IMS opportunities.

Ericsson is working in cooperation with IT companies such as Sun Microsystems, Intel and BEA Systems on the creation of this ecosystem. "The ecosystem is about openness, credibility and cooperation. We want to show where Ericsson is active and make things happen," Odgaard says.

Noumena in China, Gennaker in Spain, and N2N Consulting in Singapore are examples of companies that have signed agreements with Ericsson to supply IMS applications to operators.

Todd Ashton, head of IMS sales at Ericsson, says the expert centers create opportunities for smaller companies that have great ideas, by helping them to get business. Ashton says: “The more applications that bring business to operators using IMS-based technology, the better.

“The Ericsson Developer Program plays an important part in connecting IMS to the innovative IT application world,” Ashton says. “The expert centers help create an environment in which many players can contribute to the success of IMS, and that is the way it needs to be.”

The expert centers in Canada, Spain, Brazil, and Turkey are primarily for IMS application development. The expert center in Italy does prototyping and innovation. A remote testing lab has been established at the expert center in Canada.