Ericsson opens Taiwan office to support consumer electronics expansion
Modules and reference designs to turn up in a huge range of wireless enabled devices, even phones
Published: 11 March, 2010
READ MORE: Taiwan | Ericsson | Dongle/Datacard
Ericsson's Mobile Platforms unit has been taking an increasingly prominent role in the Swedish giant's portfolio, aiming to get its modules and reference designs into a huge range of wireless enabled devices. This sees the company developing a play for the mobile device market that could even include handsets, and could reduce the strategic importance of the Sony Ericsson (SEMC) cellphone joint venture. To support its expansion, it has set up an office in the heartland of consumer electronics manufacturing, Taiwan.
While SEMC focuses on mainstream handsets, Ericsson is more concerned with the move to embed wireless into higher end mobile internet products, as well as a range of consumer gadgets from media players to set-top boxes. Until recently, its activities were largely confined to dongles and notebook modules, and it has an important alliance with Intel here. However, recently it has announced faster HSPA+ modules and won deals for devices such as the newest Sony e-reader and a Netgear home gateway.
Now the unit seems to be stepping up its activities considerably with the opening of the Taiwanese base, whose role will be to target new HSPA device formats plus products for LTE and IPTV, according to local newspaper Digitimes. Stefan Johansson, president of Ericsson Taiwan, told reporters that the new initiative was driven by the global demand for connected devices - including handsets, notebooks, MIDs and gaming machines - which should top 50bn units by 2010.
The office will also source products such as set-top boxes for use in major integration projects, where Ericsson is supplying converged all-IP networks and systems for carriers. The firm is expected to work with vendors like Zyxel and Wistron NeWeb in this area, and to get its modules into gadgets from Wistron, Micro-Star International and Clevo, according to DigiTimes.
EMP's vice president Mats Norin sees opportunities in all kinds of mobile devices from the emerging tablets to media players and recently suggested handsets could be a target too. The module could act like a reference design, saving low cost vendors time and money in R&D. This goes back to the alliance Ericsson made in 2007 with Texas Instruments to combine the former's modems and the latter's OMAP application processor for handset reference platforms, and such partnerships will be important to surround the module with the kind of functionality required in a smartphone.
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