Ericsson to restructure

Ericsson is re-organizing to be more customer-oriented. It will divide the company into three distinct business units - networks, global services and multimedia. The networks unit will focus on the sale of telecoms equipment and have about 21,500 employees; global services will focus on network management and have about 23,000 employées, while the multimedia unit will have “only” 4,000 employées. In parallel, more engineers will be recruited to ''accelerate research'' in technology for future networks and multimedia. With operators pushing to add services such as TV, music and data to mobile telephony and deliver TV services over fixed-line networks in order to compensate decline in traditional voice fixed and mobile services, Ericsson believes it is the right time to focus on multimedia, “an area with obvious business opportunities and potentially a powerful driver for increasing network capacity and investments by operators.'' Erocsson estimates the multimedia market (TV, music, games, video and radio) could reach $100bn by 2011, from $20bn in 2005.