Telco Cloud Startups go Head-to Head Against Major Infrastructure Vendors – And Win

The telco network is starting to provide opportunities for much smaller companies and even startups are now winning business against the established giants: Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia. ABI Research has released its Telco Cloud Hot Tech Innovators report, outlining 15 companies that are creating new types of innovation and bringing fresh ideas to the telco market. These companies include cloud players, new entrants, network specialists, and software developers, which were previously barred from entering the telecoms market.

 “The 15 companies we have profiled illustrate a completely new way of developing network technology. In some cases, they have even won business against Tier-1 vendors, which are 100 times their size, have 100 times their R&D budget and have a formidable sales organization,” said Dimitris Mavrakis, Research Director at ABI Research. “These companies win with software skills, cloud computing, open sourcing, and being free of a legacy business to support”.

This disruptive paradigm shift is critical for the next generation of telco networks and in fact, the telco business itself. Innovation in this market has typically relied on standardization, efforts of multi-national telcos and a few giant companies with thousands of employees developing new technologies. The 15 companies ABI Research has profiled, and the new wave of startups go directly opposite this established norm: some of them are 10-people companies and rely on open source projects to win business. Only by embracing this new trend can telcos break free from their connectivity-driven business model. Frinx, inManta, Metaswitch, Netrolix, NFWare and Yotta Communications are a few examples of startups that would have no place in the market five years ago.

“We expect to see many more deals won by these 15 companies soon, as telcos will realize the world doesn’t end beyond the reach of large infrastructure vendors” says Dimitris Mavrakis. “Software expertise, fresh thinking and most important, no legacy business to maintain, will give these new entrants considerable advantages to become sustainable and profitable businesses”.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Telco Cloud Hot Tech Innovators report. This report is part of the company’s Telco Cloud Platforms & Digital Transformation research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights.