Switzerland’s largest operator Swisscom and Ericsson have entered into a partnership to develop the machine to machine (M2M) market.

As per the agreement Swisscom will offer enterprises, from different industries both in Switzerland as well as Swisscom customers abroad, services to leverage efficiencies along their customers’ value chain from production to distribution.

Swisscom’s M2M offering is based on Ericsson’s market-proven device connection platform, which allows for cost-efficient management of a large number of connected devices and machines.

The first trials will start in February 2012. The commercial introduction of services is scheduled for the summer 2012.

Several hundred thousand machines are already connected in Switzerland. Swisscom predictions indicate that this number will grow significantly in the coming years, and that in the long run, the addressable market will comprise up to 100 million connected devices and machines in Switzerland alone. Industries that benefit from M2M communication are typically utilities, government, transport and healthcare, but the potential for its use extends well beyond that.

“Our ambition is to provide enterprise customers with a scalable, easy-to-configure-and-maintain, telecom-grade solution that helps them to leverage the full potential of their M2M connectivity and gain a competitive advantage”, said Urs Schaeppi, Head of Swisscom Corporate Business Unit.

“We have connected billions of people to date with mobile networks. Now we are starting to address the Networked Society with our vision of more than 50 billion connected devices – primarily from M2M connectivity in all kinds of industries – by 2020 worldwide”, said Anders Runevad, Head of Region Western & Central Europe.