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Nokia plans to launch an incubator to engage start-ups that can develop solutions for smart cities and IoT.
“We are looking to identify and analyse ideas that can later be developed into products in the above mentioned areas,” Randeep Raina, Head of Technology- India for Nokia, told BusinessLine .
While Nokia sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft a couple of years ago, began to focus more on its network equipment business, which was boosted by the acquisition of French telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent.
Post this shift, Nokia is increasingly engaging government entities, telcos, internet service providers and enterprise customers as it sees opportunities in areas such as IoT, smart cities and in general, connecting communities. “If you take IoT, one single company cannot do all the heavy lifting and this is where the ecosystem needs to be developed and where start-ups can play a big role,” said Raina.
While Nokia did not specify in which smart cities it is working on, Raina said that it is in discussions with many of these initiatives.
The company believes that in some smart cities, it needs to go along with infrastructure player like L&T, while in others, it is looking at partnerships with other ecosystem players.
However, analysts believe that the going will be tough. According to Sanchit Vir Gogia, founder analyst at Greyhound Research, for companies like Nokia which is redefining its identity, the going will be difficult unless it discovers some ‘killer’ start-ups in these spaces.
Traditional businessApart from these new areas, Nokia is also seeing opportunities in its traditional business, which involves laying the network backbone for broadband services. “So far, 4G has seen limited adoption as the rollout has happened only in select cities. However, it will change in due course, which would be an opportunity for Nokia,” said Raina.
He pointed out the government's push towards optical fibre such as the BharatNet project, which industry observers believe will be the backbone for the cashless economy that Prime Minister has ushered in.
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