What’s up with… TIP & Accenture, Radware, Ericsson

• TIP offers a diploma in Open RAN
• Radware spins out its Cloud Native Protector business, attracts investor
• Ericsson targets utility firms with new innovation centre

Featuring in today’s industry news roundup are a digital school for students of network disaggregation, a cybersecurity spin-out, and Ericsson’s lab for utility firms.

The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) has launched the TIP Academy, a vendor-neutral B2B learning service developed in collaboration with Accenture and focused on “the wide range of open disaggregated solutions that are currently in development.” TIP says the “first curriculum” is all about Open RAN, “delivering the only comprehensive end-to-end training in the industry. The complete curriculum will include more than 20 modules, starting from the fundamentals to more advanced topics, such as Open RAN System Integration or TCO and Business Evolution.” Vodafone, Accenture, and Deutsche Telekom are the “charter clients” of TIP Academy, which means the digital training platform “will be incorporated into their employee learning programs.” Yago Tenorio, Chairman at TIP, noted: “TIP has established itself as a coalescing force in the industry—bringing the world’s operators together with vendors and other connectivity stakeholders to accelerate the development of new and innovative disaggregated technologies. The momentum behind the development of these technologies is undeniable. The commercial reality of these technologies means that the industry now needs to upskill its workforce to fully leverage these new solutions. That’s where TIP Academy fits in.” Read more.   

Cybersecurity and application delivery platform specialist Radware has spun out its Cloud Native Protector (CNP) business to form a new company, SkyHawk Security, into which Tiger Global Management will make a $35 million strategic investment, resulting in a valuation of $180 million. SkyHawk Security is a “leader in cloud threat detection and protects dozens of the world’s leading organizations using its artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies,” claims Radware. Read more. 

The spin out came as Radware announced a 10% year-on-year increase in first quarter revenues to $73.7 million and a 28% increase in operating income after one-time costs of $9.6 million. For further details, see this earnings release. 

Ericsson has opened a Global Utilities Innovation Center at its facility in Plano, Texas, in the hope of capturing the hearts, minds and wallets of the world’s utility firms. The centre consists of a “purpose-built operating lab and demo environment locations that will allow utilities to engage with Ericsson and its partners to solve real-world connectivity challenges,” and private wireless networks are clearly seen as one route to solving such challenges. “Private cellular networks are principal catalysts for utilities in their digital transformation journey to address multiple use cases, and utilities can now leverage our Global Utilities Innovation Center to experiment with different 4G and 5G use cases and co-create with our ecosystem partners,” noted Koustuv Ghoshal, Vice President and Head of Utilities, Energy & Industrials at Ericsson North America. “We look forward to partnering with utilities around the world on their grid modernization journey.” The move comes as Ericsson increasingly targets the enterprise sector to drum up new business. Read more. 

The European Commission has “informed Apple of its preliminary view that it abused its dominant position in markets for mobile wallets on iOS devices. By limiting access to a standard technology used for contactless payments with mobile devices in stores (‘Near-Field Communication (NFC)' or ‘tap and go'), Apple restricts competition in the mobile wallets market on iOS,” noted the EC in this statement. “We are concerned that Apple may have illegally distorted competition in the market for mobile wallets on Apple devices,” noted Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age and Commissioner for Competition. “The preliminary conclusion we reached today relates to mobile payments in shops. By excluding others from the game, Apple has unfairly shielded its Apple Pay wallet from competition. If proven, this behaviour would amount to abuse of dominant position, which is illegal under our rules... Apple will now have the opportunity to respond to our concerns,” she added in this statement. 

Lightpath, the US fibre network operator co-owned by Altice USA and Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP), says its network, which runs along 18,000 route kms in the New York metro and Greater Boston areas, is now connected to 2,000 mobile towers across the country, having “doubled its number of on-net wireless sites in the last 12 months.” Read more.