The Record - Issue 19: Winter 2020

78 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om F E ATUR E T he telecommunications industry is cur- rently on the edge of dramatic change. Connectivity has become an integral part of working life, and the introduction of 5G networks will bring a range of capabilities to operators that will enable them to develop new connected ser- vices across different industries. At the same time, the established operators are having to counter new entrants challenging traditional business models as consumer needs change. “Telecommunications companies have had a certain way of doing things that has made them successful,” says Fran Dougherty, principal program manager of ecosystem development for Azure for Operators at Microsoft. “5G will offer lots and lots of opportunity to both con- sumers and businesses. A new set of opportu- nities means that operators will need to look at the way they’ve engineered in the past in a different way.” Microsoft is taking a collaborative approach to leveraging these new capabilities, working with telecommunications companies to combine their respective resources and expertise. “We’re really focused on partnering with tele- communications companies,” says Dougherty. “We’re going to partner deeply with operators, because our joint customers are going to be the ones that are going to build the smart factories, smart cities and smart buildings. We’re not inter- ested in being an operator ourselves. Instead, we’ll bring our very significant compute resources and advanced services with cloud edge capabilities, combine themwith their infrastructure and lever- age the power that the high speed and low latency of 5G provides.” Azure for Operators is Microsoft’s platform to help telecommunications companies take advan- tage of new innovations, aiming to future-proof their networks, drive down costs and create new business models and revenue streams. A crucial part of the development of this new strategy for telecommunications has been the acquisition of Affirmed Networks and Metaswitch. Affirmed Networks’ fully virtualised and cloud-native mobile network solutions enable operators to simplify their network operations and rapidly create new services, while Metaswitch provides BY A L E X SM I TH Telecommunications companies are leveraging the transformative capabilities of 5G networks and the cloud to develop new services and business models new ways to communicate Creating