Zain Kuwait builds National Cloud with Microsoft Azure

Zain Kuwait and its ICT solutions arm, ZainTech, is working with Microsoft to introduce a national cloud offering for public and private sectors in the country.

The collaboration will see the development of a cloud environment combining Microsoft’s extensive portfolio, Zain’s private cloud infrastructure, and ZainTech’s expertise, enabling data and applications to be shared between them. 

Zain said the new national cloud  in Kuwait can help organizations modernize their data centers by bringing cloud techniques, such as software-defined data centers, self-service, and elasticity based on virtualization, into their data centers. Using a single centralized perspective, the national cloud offering can enable organizations to efficiently manage compliance with proliferating standards and infrastructure that is expanding across on-premises, public cloud, and multi-cloud implementations.

Commenting on this collaboration, Hamad Al Marzouq, Zain Kuwait Chief Enterprise Business Officer said, “Cloud offerings are driving efficiencies that have never been experienced before, and the Kuwait government has been quick to realize its benefits and has been investing in cloud infrastructure accordingly. Our alliance with Microsoft and ZainTech is geared towards supporting and accelerating these developments further and comes from a shared vision of the benefits the flexibility of cloud offerings has on driving digitization in our country.

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Vodafone develops 5G radio based on Raspberry Pi

Vodafone introduced a prototype 5G radio based on a credit card sized Raspberry Pi personal computer and an equally small, advanced silicon chipset. The unit is designed to extend 5G coverage in small businesses and households.

The new system, which was developed at  Vodafone’s new European R&D Centre in Málaga, combines a Raspberry Pi 4 with a small 5G compatible embeddable software-defined radio (SDR) circuit board, made by UK-based specialist, Lime Microsystems. 

Vodafone said it aims to make 5G-based mobile private networks (MPNs) more accessible to the 22 million small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Europe. It could also offer households extended coverage providing an additional fast broadband link at times when many residents are online simultaneously.

Santiago Tenorio, Vodafone’s Director of Network Architecture, said: “We looked at what Raspberry Pi did for computing, in terms of making it more accessible to people of all ages, and we wanted to do the same with 5G.”

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ADVA cites high demand from telecom service providers

Citing very high demand from telecommunications service providers, ADVA reported revenues of EUR 195.7 million for Q4 2022, up by 9.0% from EUR 179.6 million in Q3 2022, also up by 24.1% compared to EUR 157.7 million in Q4 2021. Pro forma gross profit in Q4 2022 increased by 17.4%, reaching EUR 71.4 million (36.5% of revenues) compared to EUR 60.9 million (33.9% of revenues) in Q3 2022 and increased by 27.4% compared to EUR 56.1 million (35.6% of revenues) reported in Q4 2021. The margin increase was due to a reduction in freight costs and expedited fees associated with the semiconductor crisis.

Net income reached EUR 3.8 million in Q4 2022 and increased by 329.2% from EUR 0.9 million in Q3 2022 but decreased by 78.4% from EUR 17.5 million in Q4 2021.

"We’re proud to report a highly successful fiscal year, where we achieved the highest revenues in our company’s history. Despite ongoing challenges caused by the semiconductor crisis, bottlenecks in the supply chains, inflation and fears of recession, we were able to stay on course, comprehensively serving and supporting our customers with innovative communications technology, software and services,” said Christoph Glingener, CEO of ADVA. “Looking forward, we are optimistic about future growth prospects. We have a strong pipeline of new products and services and are well-positioned to benefit from the major trends in our industry. Our capabilities in software and services are strengthening, delivering increasing value to our customers and partners. Together with Adtran, we will continue to focus on cost management and operational efficiency while investing in key areas to enter new growth markets.”

“Today, we report financial results of a strong 2022 with revenue growth of 18% year-over-year. Considering the various macroeconomic challenges and ongoing constraints in global supply chains, we’re very pleased with our profitability, which came in as expected,” commented Uli Dopfer, CFO of ADVA. “We’re optimistic that global supply chains will ease during this year and that cash generation will improve. We also expect to benefit from our business combination with Adtran and see first revenue synergies in 2023. We remain committed to increasing software and service revenues, which will drive continued margins improvement.”

https://www.adva.com/en/about-us/investors/financial-results/conference-calls

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