On Tuesday, Ericsson announced a subscription service for WFH in North America.
Office as a Service by Ericsson?
Ericsson is known for making telecom equipment, and it has benefitted from the sale of 5G gear. Now, the telecom vendor is looking to diversify.
This service will allow small business employees to start working from home in minutes. The service also bundles access to licensed apps, cloud storage and security tools with itself.
First, a business customer can buy apps from a marketplace. Second, the users can access the platform from any device anywhere. Also, the company said that there would be no need of an IT technician to set up the system.
Asa Tamsons, Head of Business Area Technologies and New Businesses, spoke about the service. She said that the admin can activate employees' access in minutes. What's more, they can decide which employees can get access to which apps or capabilities.
She added that subscription starts at around $100 per employee, per month. Notably, Ericsson has tied up with various companies to offer access to business applications such as Microsoft Office. It has also partnered with technology services distributor Telarus to sell subscriptions for the platform.
There is competition in this rather new field, however. The company will face competition from companies both small and large. From small companies offering remote desktop products to big tech companies such as Microsoft and Cisco. In its estimates, Ericsson said that the total market in the US for virtual workspaces is about $90 billion. This figure represents about two-fifths of the total American workforce.
Interestingly, the telecom vendor started working on the service with two employees in March 2020. Tamsons further said that it later added more than 100 workers and has bought a virtual desktop company.