Vonage at Digital X 2023
This week Vonage exhibited and spoke at Digital X 2023 in Cologne, Germany; an exciting event with one initiative and one goal - driving digitization!
Through a number of speaking engagements, Vonage announced its groundbreaking partnership with Deutsche Telekom, one of the world's leading integrated telecommunications companies, to launch the MagentaBusiness API Platform, powered by Vonage.
There was standing room only when Rory Read, Vonage CEO and SVP, Head of Business Area Global Communications Platform for Ericsson, revealed the news to an exclusive group of industry analysts on Tuesday. The co-branded portal, powered by Vonage, will offer easy access for developers and business customers to both communications APIs and network APIs backed by the Telekom network.This represents a key milestone in Ericsson’s enterprise strategy as Ericsson and Vonage together build the foundation for a global network platform for open innovation.
Read explained, “Today we are excited to announce Deutsche Telekom as our first strategic CSP partner, who is the first to expose network capabilities as APIs, powered by Vonage, opening up their network. Deutsche Telekom will also offer existing Vonage communications APIs so developers and enterprises can build applications and services for seamless communication and better engagement.
“The combination of Ericsson and Vonage puts the power of the network at the fingertips of developers across the globe to capture new market opportunities. Together, we will enable advanced 5G use cases like cloud gaming, connected vehicles, remote patient monitoring and so much more. Backed by Deutsche Telekom’s technical strength and the power of the Vonage Communications Platform, MagentaBusiness API offers the ability to build secure, reliable and innovative experiences across industries.”
Announcing the Partnership
In the press release issued by Deutsche Telekom, Claudia Nemat, Board Member for Technology and Innovation at Deutsche Telekom commented, "In the future, our network itself will enable new growth opportunities for businesses through APIs. We invite our customers to explore new use cases or optimize existing business processes by participating in our friendly adopter program. Together with Vonage and Ericsson, we are the first to expose network APIs in a one-stop shop portal. APIs are a key strategic focus for Deutsche Telekom. This is underlined by our status as a founding member of the CAMARA alliance, which aims to make standardized APIs available internationally."
At Wednesday’s keynote, Börje Ekholm, President and CEO of Ericsson, gave his take on the news, commenting, “This partnership marks a world first in the commercialization of network APIs. This is just one example of how our industry can embrace new ways of monetizing the network. By giving developers and enterprises access to advanced network capabilities we’re driving a new era of innovation and value creation.
He concluded, “We are making networks fully programmable and globally available and that is going to lead to a transformation of the entire telecom industry. We are so excited to have DT joining us on this journey! The time is now. Let's seize this opportunity together and drive the transformation of our industry.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Savinay Berry, EVP, Product and Engineering at Vonage was joined by Seckin Arikan, Head of GNP Go-to-Market at Vonage, Peter Arbitter, SVP B2B Portfolio & Business Unit Global SD-X, DT Enterprise Customers, and Abhijeet Sharma, Global Lead for Blockchain, Mobile and Partner Universe Practices for Agriculture at BASF, to share a first look at the new MagentaBusiness API and how it can help businesses build more intelligent, intuitive customer engagements across multiple channels.
Berry explained, “Network APIs enable developers to integrate telecommunication services and networking functionalities directly into their applications, facilitating data exchange between various systems or devices. Let me give you an example: A Network API could be i.e. Quality on Demand. By booking this API, you will receive a secured network quality with a low latency. This is valuable for use cases that require a high accuracy, like autonomous driving or connected manufacturing use cases.
“By exposing the power of the 5G network, we will uncover new capabilities, innovations and immersive use cases like optimized logistics, connected vehicles and remote patient monitoring. Things which, right now, only happen in small silos and niche places, can become democratized through low code/no code and open network APIs, like MagentaBusiness API from DT, powered by Vonage.”
Arbitter added, “The MagentaBusiness API offering is designed so that businesses can begin to take advantage of these capabilities today - no matter how far along they are in their digital transformation journey. From fully pre-built solutions to pre-configured solutions that can be tailored to customer needs up to access to plain individual APIs for in-house developers in our API portal to build from the ground up. There’s a level of MagentaBusiness API for every company.”
Leveraging the Power of APIs
On Thursday, CEO Rory Read took to the stage again alongside Nemat and Erik Ekudden, Chief Technology Officer at Ericsson, to reveal more about the partnership and how businesses can leverage the power of APIs.
Explaining how developers and enterprises can benefit from the partnership, Ekudden commented, “Mobile technology has already transformed societies and countless businesses with subscriptions reaching 8.4b overall, and 5G 1.1b at the beginning of 2023 but we know it’s not even close to reaching its full potential. We have since long talked about 5G as the new innovation platform for enterprises and developers. This launch is a great milestone for DT and our industry, and a great result of our partnership with DT. Together we will make it much easier for developers to access advanced - and often complex - network functionality through easy to consume services APIs via DT’s new developer and enterprise platform.
“Ericsson foresees that digital enterprises will consume network connectivity and features as-a-service similar to any cloud service today. Together with DT and other CSPs we will make it easier for enterprises to speed up their digital transformation. This is also why we believe that Vonage fits so well into Ericsson’s new business growth strategy. We will be able to better serve CSPs and enterprises both on their local markets and those who need global scale.”
Read was asked what businesses can expect from the gateway into the DT network and what customers can do with it. He responded that “MagentaBusiness API users will simply sign up for the portal powered by Vonage, where they will gain access to both Communications APIs and Network APIs. The portal will function as a one-stop shop for comprehensive developer guides, documentation, support and tutorials for developers and enterprises. This enables them to start using the APIs as quickly as possible.”
Nemat added, “I really like that the developer community can use this portal in self service, making it even more efficient. It’s also easy to use for anyone, with improved customer experience. You can basically start today! No matter how far you’ve already digitized your business.”
Read more about our partnership with Deutsche Telekom
