The Swedish 5G and IoT provider says its Connected Vehicle Cloud connects more than 4 million vehicles across 180 countries worldwide. That’s 10% of the connected vehicle market, now linked with the Azure cloud. “Together with Ericsson, we intend to simplify the development of connected vehicle services to help car makers focus on their customers’ needs and accelerate the delivery of unique, tailor-made driving experiences,” said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president, business development, Microsoft.
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Integrating the two services will let Ericsson enable global offerings like fleet management and over the air software updates in a cheaper and faster way. This is on top of its current implementation, which Ericsson says offloads the complexity for vehicle manufacturers by providing 24/7 operations and lifecycle management for connected vehicles. Volvo already has a deal with both Microsoft and Ericsson. It made the deal with Microsoft back in 2017 and signed a 5-year contract with Ericsson more recently. As ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley points out, Volkswagen acquired Volvo’s connected car unit in late 2018 and has its own strategic partnership with Microsoft. As such, integration of the two connected vehicle solutions will provide significant value for their customers. “Our integrated solutions will help automotive manufacturers accelerate their global connected vehicle solutions and offer a better experience for drivers and passengers,” said Ericsson’s Åsa Tamsons, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Area Technologies & New Businesses. “This is an exciting new offering with great benefits for the automotive industry, leveraging Ericsson and Microsoft’s technology leadership in connectivity and cloud.”
