“SoftBank Corp. is rapidly transforming into an entity that transcends the typical business field of a telecommunications operator by advancing a Beyond Carrier strategy, according to Ken Miyauchi, SoftBank Corp. president and CEO.
“Beyond Carrier” is SoftBank’s strategy to sustain growth by extending its business into the service and content fields and related areas, he said. In other words, “moving up the stack” or “across the value chain” into applications, services and content that require connectivity support.
It is not hard to find critics of such strategies. Smaller firms, in particular, might not have the assets to move up the stack. For larger firms, which might aspire to do so, there is risk, as it requires moving out of the area of core competency.
Partnerships between connectivity providers and Google for edge computing illustrate the problem. Google Cloud says it is helping telecommunications companies monetize 5G as a business services platform, in part by prototyping and developing edge computing use cases in retail, manufacturing and transportation.
The Global Mobile Edge Cloud program aims to create a portfolio and marketplace of 5G solutions built jointly with telecommunications companies; an open cloud platform for developing these network-centric applications; and a global distributed edge for optimally deploying these solutions, Google Cloud says.
A collaboration with AT&T is part of that effort, where AT&T supplies the network while Google Cloud supplies the computing functions. If that sounds a bit like “dumb pipe,” you’d be right. The same might be said to be the case for the AWS Wavelengths initiative, where AWS supplies the edge computing and telcos supply real estate (rack space).
And virtually every equity analyst prefers the stick to what you do best approach, as we have seen with criticism of AT&T’s moves into video entertainment, for example.
But you can count SoftBank amongst the carriers that plan to move across the ecosystem or up the stack.
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