Polystar is the Finnish operator’s telecoms software, automation and analytics arm
When it comes to selling software solutions and expertise to other telcos, Rakuten Symphony is not the only game in town – see below – both are growing by acquisition as well as by selling in-house nous. Elisa Polystar, part of the Elisa Group, provides cloud-native automation and analytics solutions to more than 120 operators globally.
Now it has completed is acquisition of Cardinality that it announced in early July. Cardinality describes itself as a “supplier of cloud-native data management (DataOps), service assurance and customer experience analytics for communications service providers (CSPs) globally”.
Elisa Polystar has added the company to its portfolio to gain “industry-leading” data management and AI-driven analytics and automation, with data ingestion and cloud-native capabilities. According to the Finnish acquirer, the simultaneously enables top- and bottom-line improvements for network operators.
Earlier this year, Elisa Polystar acquired Slovak company Frinx to boost its analytics and zero-touch automation capabilities.
Although details of customers, sizes of contracts, depth of engagement and which tech capabilities are in play are not transparent, it’s interesting to note that Elisa Polystar claims to have more than 120 operator customers globally. Below shows Rakuten Symphony’s progress in selling its tech and expertise to other operators provided at its presentation to analysts and journalists this week. The really big kicker here, of course, is the 1&1 anchor customer.
The operator-as-vendor-to-other-operators (OVOO – you saw it here first) looks set to become a major theme in telecoms in the 2020s.