Ericsson invests in Novatium Solutions

Acquires minority stake and board participation

Novatium Solutions Private Limited, a Company with a vision to provide superior, simple to use ‘Computing for the next billion’, today announced a strategic minority investment by Ericsson India. With this investment Novatium gains valuable global market reach and deep rooted telecom infrastructure and operator relationships worldwide expertise.

This strategic investment in Novatium’s further strengthens Ericsson’s leadership position and commitment in India and beyond. It also brings Ericsson a step closer to its vision to be the prime driver in an all-communicating world and its mission to empower people, business and societies. Ericsson envisions that in an all-communicating world, everyone can use voice, data, images and video to share ideas and information wherever and whenever they want. It aims to make people’s lives richer and easier, provide affordable communication for all and enable new ways to do business.

The PC market in India and globally is moving into the next phase where more emphasis is being put on simplicity for the end-users. Connectivity is the key enabler for this trend, which is seen in increased traction for cloud computing, virtualization and PC-as-a-Service. Novatium’s hassle free computing solution, where people can simply plug and compute, showcases proven value for the masses. The company already has partnerships with leading Indian operators - Bharti, BSNL, MTNL and Tata along with successful pilot and deployments in other countries.

Mr. Alok Singh, Chief Executive Officer, Novatium Solutions Pvt. Ltd. said, “Our offerings for the consumer market are compelling for both the developed and emerging markets as consumers, are increasingly seeking simpler, always-on internet experience and choice of relevant content and applications. This strategic relationship with Ericsson encompasses multi-fold innovations in the technology, consumer content & applications and telecom relationships space. It will, therefore provide impetus to rollout Novatium services globally with market relevant offerings”.

Novatium as a distinct new business complementing Ericsson’s existing portfolio, will continue to focus on India business and select overseas markets with Ericsson spearheading the overseas business. Novatium’s computing as a service solution, apart from being an interesting business opportunity with potentially high growth, could bring substantial value to telecom operators active in the broadband value chain, fixed and mobile globally. This relationship will help Novatium to be a truly global service provider with international relevance and aggressive market reach.

Novatium’s Utility Computing as a Service provides end-to-end new age online experience with special emphasis on simple access to information, applications and entertainment content on internet, personalized education, VoIP integration and business productivity suite. For current PC users, it provides access to Linux and Windows Operating systems simultaneously. Novatium’s unique technology delivers an ‘obsolescence-proof computing service’ which is superior in performance and simple to use, with substantial savings on investment. All the complexities associated with computers, softwares, anti-virus, and device drivers are managed by Novatium technical experts as part of service uptime guarantee for a small service fee. The subscribers can choose from plenty of attractive plans that are also bundled with broadband plans from Telecom partners of Novatium.

About Ericsson:
Ericsson is the world's leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company's portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices. 

Ericsson is advancing its vision of being the "prime driver in an all-communicating world" through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 175 countries, more than 80,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 206.5 billion (USD 27.1 billion) in 2009. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on OMX NASDAQ, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.

About Novatium Solutions Pvt Ltd
Novatium, the leading provider of Managed Utility Computing as a Service in the country, builds affordable and simple computing platform to provide comprehensive computing solutions. Novatium has top-of-the-line expertise in core computing environments like Linux development, hardware platform, media processing, product testing, research in networking and audio/video technology, network administration, Linux/Windows system administration, Linux internals, programming and X windows. The company has two platforms of services for the country, Nova Navigator and Nova netPC with all India availability. Novatium’s core strength lies in their management team which a pool of expertise has centered on competency areas like product development, solutions, sales and marketing.

Novatium’s innovation is in the area of providing easy to use computing having developed the ‘Utility Computing Paradigm’, to achieve the goal of providing simple computing. The utility computing involves providing computing services based on ‘Pay as you Use’ utility model. The underlying principle is that users subscribe only to the required applications and resources opted for a desired period. Novatium provides home computing service across India and its simplicity of computing provides unique utility computing service, coupled with ease of navigation, data security and freedom from the hassles of application and software maintenance and upgrades.