Infrastructure giant Ericsson is continuing its diversification drive by partnering with chip giant Intel to provide telcos with managed security solutions to sell on to their enterprise customers. The companies see security as a key issue as we move into the Internet of Things era.

As part of its strategy to expand its area of business beyond the mature wireless kit market, Ericsson already has extensive managed services offerings as well as network security knowledge. Intel itself has been on a long diversification journey, with the acquisition of McAfee in 2010 making it a significant security player.

“Telecommunications networks are a critical component of the economic and social infrastructures that we rely upon,” said Chris Young, GM of Intel Security. “Together, Intel Security and Ericsson are working to keep the well over three billion people across the globe that use these systems safe and secure.”

“Intel Security has an exceptional, end-to-end consumer and enterprise security product portfolio,” said Jean-Claude Geha, Head of Managed Services at Ericsson. “Ericsson is the leader in telecom managed services with the scale, skills and people required to make Intel’s security solutions available to telecom operators around the world. Together, we will be able to provide exceptional managed security solutions to telecom operators.”

Having struggled to crack mobile it’s not surprising to see Intel look to partner with companies for whom this is a core competence. Similarly Ericsson will be anxious not to let its diversification strategy cause excessive exposure to areas of business that aren’t a historical strength, so this kind of partnership makes sense.