Spanish telco refashions innovation unit as it readies developer-ready APIs for future services
Telefónica will create a new company Telefónica Innovación Digital, at the end of the year, which will integrate innovation arm Telefónica I+D and Telefónica Digital. The new company will be headed by chief digital officer Chema Alonso (above), according to Economía Digital.
The combined company will bring together around a thousand employees; around 800 from Telefónica Digital and approximately 200 from Telefónica I+D, according to union sources. The legal process of integration of both companies will be completed by the end of 2023, according to Telefónica’s calculations.
The new company, initially revealed by El Economista, will focus on transformation new technologies and digital products and services including, open network APIs, data analytics and AI. The restructure aims to simplify the Spanish telco’s internal processes and better delineate its operations from its Telefónica Tech integration arm.
Making the telco appy
Earlier this year at MWC, Telefónica announced a strategic agreement with Microsoft that will see the two companies collaborate within the framework of GSMA Open Gateway initiative. Telcos can no longer innovate in isolation and as part of the agreement, Telefónica will add the GitHub Enterprise platform to its internal development process, including GitHub Copilot.
The telco believes it has the digital transformation edge due to its previous Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) based on its Telefónica Kernel platform that enables programmable networks. Internal developments already include a cloud gaming use case based on web3 technologies and integrated with the Movistar Tokens programme.
In Spain, the telco is working with AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Vonage to offer developers exclusive telco services access, via an early adopter scheme. The programme is free of charge and allows pre-commercial access to a repository of APIs to develop real use cases on Telefónica’s network services. The telco hopes to roll this out internationally.
“We are designing developer-ready APIs that offer developers an environment for the creation of new digital services, bringing out the full potential of the networks that backbone the Internet,” said Alonso at the time.