Adopting InnerSource

Chapter 7. Connecting Teams with InnerSource at Ericsson

With John Landy

• Year, place founded: 1876, Sweden

• Area(s) of Business: Telecommunications

• Revenues: ca. €18.9 billion (2017)

• Offices: Serves customers in 180 countries

• Number of employees worldwide: ca. 97,500

• Number of R&D engineers: 23,600

• Year of InnerSource adoption: 2013

Ericsson is a Swedish multinational company operating in the telecommunications industry. Founded in 1876, the company now has operations in about 180 countries. Ericsson is a global player in communication network solutions, and its networks carry about 40% of the world’s mobile traffic. Ericsson R&D employs about 23,600 people worldwide. Ericsson’s R&D operations in Ireland are based in Athlone, which employs over 800 software engineers working on Ericsson OSS (Operation Support Systems).

The Changing Telecommunications Landscape

The telecommunications landscape has changed dramatically in the past 30 years or so. A key driver in this evolution is the emergence of new standards and technologies for mobile networks, which have seen very dramatic growth since the early nineties. Telecommunications traditionally focused on fixed networks that were managed through large exchange stations, but mobile networks play an increasingly important role, with new standards emerging continuously (GSM, 3G, 4G, and 5G). The nature of this infrastructure is significantly different as well: rather than a relatively small number of fixed network exchanges, ...