Ericsson

Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is a provider of telco equipment and related services to mobile and fixed network operators worldwide. With more than a century of history, the Swedish telco giant was founded in a telegraph equipment repair shop by Lars Magnus Ericsson in 1876.

Aside from core businesses in network infrastructure and various wireless technologies, Ericsson has also expanded to offer airborne, terrestrial, and marine radar systems, plus various products that integrate copper and optical cables, and power networks. Over 1,000 networks in 140 countries use Ericsson network equipment and 40 percent of all mobile calls are made through the company's systems.

In 2001, Ericsson entered a joint venture with Japanese electronics giant Sony to form Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications which spun off a series of successful product lines, including the Walkman-branded W series music phones and the Cyber-shot camera-centric phones.

Ericsson is also pushing a new technology--dubbed Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)--that promises to let mobile users send pictures and transmit video in the middle of a phone conversation.