It’s no surprise that collaboration is a key trend at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Again, but more than last year, and probably much less than the next one.

For anyone who had the opportunity to walk through the endless stands, attend to infinite presentations and announcements or accumulate tons of press releases during the last editions of this main global event, it is clear that the emphasis is been turned on a varied telecoms ecosystem, not just mobile.

Anything that benefits from a connection will be connected. Anything. This is more, much more than just phones or tablets. Maybe even something your company is producing and you never thought will someday be talking to other devices. Same thing could be applied to services, brand new ones or transformed by next generation of connected devices.

So, as the networked society becomes more networked, the amount and types of players involved in this future increases, creating the foundation for eco-systems and transformation across industries. Eco-systems and connections. No wonder many news from Barcelona are about former competitors and niche vertical players all joining forces to drive technology innovation. From tower-sharing initiatives among network operators, to partnerships across the m-commerce space, cooperation, not competition, is the recurring theme of MWC.

As one of many examples, Alcatel announced the extension of its 2013 collaboration with Intel for conducting research and development in cloud and security technologies. The alliance of the two companies is aimed to enhance the development of innovative technologies like Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), intended to provide telecom operators with maximum benefits from their Internet Protocol (IP) networks.

The two companies will invest together in the research and development of this technology. Commenting on the collaboration, Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, reinforced the idea it’s on Co-Society soul: future is becoming too complex to deal with on your own.

“In the last year we have seen an acceleration of innovation and industry changes. This is nothing compared to what we will see in the next decades. It is critical that we lead that change by working with the best and brightest partners who can break down the barriers between IT and networking”.

Alcatel-Lucent announces global collaboration with Intel to speed industry move to cloud