Telefónica announced this Monday in the Mobile 2022 Barcelona holds an ambitious strategic plan to increase digital services in households with the help of Microsoft. The initiative includes the development and marketing of IT services, digital transformation and connectivity. Chema Alonso (Telefónica’s Chief Digital Officer) made this announcement during his speech at Telefónica’s booth on the first day of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), which opened today. One of the areas of collaboration that companies are exploring is the development of online games and the opening of new office services in ‘smart tv’ and even the development of virtual environments (metaverses). Also the impetus for video conferencing.
“No one currently knows what the evolution of the metavers from the ‘gaming’ world, but Telefónica cannot be left out of it “, explained Alonso, after narrating the global strategy that Telefónica has carried out in recent years. This design of virtual worlds opens the way to new services that have made Telefónica move from being a telecommunications company to a diversified digital service provider. Alberto Granados, President of Microsoft in Spain, highlighted the strategic agreement reached with Telefónica, considering that it opens the way to a period of technological disruption and the “integration of Microsoft products in a home security environment”.
Telefónica has also announced the promotion of video conferencing services and the integration of television into the telecommunications services of all households with fiber optics. Movistar Home is key to this development. Last year, Telefónica announced the launch of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and the launch of Xbox consoles as part of Movistar Fusion’s offering. Telefónica will also value opportunities in this field in other markets in which the company is present.
Telefónica wants to extend the use of Microsoft 365 to other markets in which it is present, following the agreement reached last year with Vivo in Brazil, which became one of the first operators in South America to offer a subscription monthly in Microsoft 365. In addition, the new alliance aims to facilitate the access of LinkedIn Learning content to the Telefónica Movistar Plus + platform. The expansion of Movistar Home’s communication capabilities with the integration of Microsoft Teams will be evaluated, making Telefónica’s device the home communications hub. This will allow users to connect to video conferencing and make calls via Teams or Zoom easily using the device screen and with voice commands with the help of Aura. These home video conferencing devices have been available for a long time, but now the company wants to promote their marketing.
Telefónica’s major contribution to the agreement with Microsoft is, in addition to the speed of its networks, to provide a secure environment for households in this transition to sophisticated telephony services. Chema Alonso commented in his presentation: “We celebrate having reached a new level of collaboration in our strategic relationship with Microsoft to generate new opportunities and expand existing ones in the space of consumption, digital home and innovation.” Telefónica has created a wide ecosystem of devices (UHD decoder, Movistar Plus + Voice Command and Movistar Home) and services, not only communications (Zoom and Teams integrated into Movistar Home), but also services to manage the line (Mi Movistar) and connectivity control (Smart WiFi), cloud storage (Movistar Cloud), gaming (Xbox Game Pass Ultimate) or music (MovistarMusic), etc.