-
The Company
The Company
- Ericsson is shaping the way the world communicates. Read on to discover more about our company, its history and vision.
-
Thinking Ahead
Tech Talk
- Do you want to know what the Social Web of Things is and how we can benefit? Watch our latest Tech Talk film
Thinking Ahead
- All our insights, research, and discussions are here in one place. Use them for Thinking Ahead.
-
Your Business
- Government
- Transport Industry
- Utilities Industry
- Developer Portal
- Equipment Manufacturers
- Channel Partner Program
Your Business
- Take a closer look at how Ericsson can help your business excel in a rapidly evolving market.
-
Our Portfolio
Our Portfolio
- Find out more about Ericsson’s comprehensive portfolio of innovative products, operator solutions and services.
-
Careers
Careers
- A career with Ericsson offers outstanding opportunities for professional and personal development in a truly global organization.
- 2008 /
- January-March 08 /
Hosted music makes good business sense
Hutchison 3 Scandinavia has developed one of the world’s most successful mobile-music offerings. So why would 3 award Ericsson the contract to host and develop its music service?
January 29, 2008
The simple answer is this: to stay ahead of the curve, 3 needs to offer ever more and increasingly varied content at competitive rates.
By teaming up with Ericsson, the operator leaves practical details such as media rights and complex technology upgrades to its vendor - allowing for a quicker and more efficient delivery of new content.
Marc Rappe, 3's product manager, says the challenge will be to help customers navigate through the rapidly growing market for mobile music, and to always anticipate what customers want.
"Our service must constantly improve," he says. "We needed a partner who would allow us to retain a prominent development role. Ericsson met this requirement, among several others."
Under the contract, Ericsson will take full responsibility for 3Music, including systems integrations, and the operation and development of new features.
Hosting is part of Ericsson's managed-services offering. Since 2004, the company has signed more than 25 hosted music contracts with operators such as Swisscom and O2 Ireland, but its deal with 3 is the biggest to date.
Jakob Lorentzon, Ericsson's music hosting sales manager, expects more operators to take the hosting route in the coming years.
"The main benefit is that the operator avoids direct hardware investments when starting up the service," Lorentzon says. "We also find economies of scale in doing this, which means the cost ultimately goes down for the operators."
To marry some of its existing functionalities with Ericsson's large music store, 3 chose a white-label, customized music solution - and all within the existing 3Music brand. The white-label solution suits operators that already have a strong service in place and want to tweak Ericsson's solution to suit their brand.
For 3, this means moving all customer data and the operator's own 500,000-song music catalog to Ericsson's platform - a massive project, says Rappe.
Operators can also choose Napster Mobile, an Ericsson-hosted service that brings instant brand recognition and access to the full Napster catalog of more than 5 million songs.
Staffan Ljung, head of music and entertainment solutions for Ericsson, says that
either way it is clear that an operator must think music in order to boost data revenue and keep up with consumer demands.
"You also get lower customer acquisition costs and reduced churn," Ljung says. "For example, 3's customers in Sweden, have created more than 1 million personalized play lists, which means they have a really strong emotional attachment to their provider."
