The acquisition is worth more than a billion dollars with a focus on capitalizing on the capabilities within the enterprise sector.
The wireless industry has seen interesting mergers and acquisitions this year with one of the latest occurring between Ericsson and Cradlepoint. Purchased for $1.1 billion, Ericsson is looking forward to the increased capabilities Cradlepoint brings to the tech giant. Cradlepoint is an enterprise network endpoint company hailing from Boise, Idaho that is known for its innovative solutions. Excitement is in the air as Ericsson’s CEO Börje Ekholm is expecting Cradlepoint to be a “key building block” going forward for the overall strategy in the world of enterprise and creating new business.
With the excitement surrounding the move, it is easy to see why. Recently, Cradlepoint unleashed enterprise solutions for 5G built to be flexible and provides multiple pathways to accessing 5G using existing infrastructure and SD-WAN implementations. The result was capable of covering not only sub-6 GHz but also mmWave spectrum. As Cradlepoint’s CMO Todd Krautkremer put things, “We really designed it to be a hallmark for what a 5G-for-business solution needs to be.” He continued, “It needs to really support all the different bands of 5G, not just the easy ones. … It needs to have indoor and outdoor units for optimal reception, which we provide…it needs to have tools that allow you to successfully deploy the solutions and have a good installation, a known good installation, even if it’s done by a third party.”
Ericsson is having quite the year with many different accomplishments and deals already achieved. Even as the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to hinder industries and capabilities, Ericsson has found a way to generate growth. The purchase of Cradlepoint is the latest move that should see the Swedish telecom giant move forward providing new solutions as companies continue to look for new ways to compete in emerging 5G markets. As 5G continues to grow throughout the world there are many factors to consider, including different markets are using different strategies in terms of build-out and spectrum tiers and the idea of openness and collaboration is strong among many companies pushing openness and innovation.
Cradlepoint is already prepared to handle these fronts as Krautkremer states that the company is “working hand in hand with major carriers around the world because they’re all developing their 5G certification process, they all have a few different flavors of 5G, they all have different strategies on sub-6 and wideband mmWave. We’re really curating our solution to work with all the different vendors around the world.”
Source: RCR Wireless