History: More than 20 years with a finger on the pulse
Editorial
Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler
“Swisscom has a place in Silicon Valley”
Who would have thought in 1998 that Swisscom would still have a presence in Silicon Valley 20 years later? What began as a small outpost for observing ongoing developments related to the Internet now involves the full spectrum of technical innovation and is an integral part of the Swisscom world. More
2002 – 2007 / 2009 – 2015
Ursula Oesterle
“Like in a research laboratory!”
Swisscom came to Silicon Valley in 1998 at the beginning of the Internet boom. Walter Steinlin, at that time head of Swisscom Corporate Technology, wanted to find out what the Internet meant for telephony. So he sent a team with Christoph Rytz, Andreas Wettstein and Erich Zahnd that was driven purely by technology to California. You could almost call it the prehistoric phase of Swisscom’s time in Silicon Valley. More
2007 – 2010
Stefan Kuentz
“The speed of technology adoption was unprecedented”
When Ursula Oesterle left for Singapore in 2007, I took her position in Silicon Valley. My personal goal was not only to establish a strong and conspicuous foothold in Silicon Valley, but especially to discover new commercial potential for our enterprise business as well. In the first phase I was still with Thomas Jakob until he decided to pursue training in Boston. After that, the Oupost was a “me, myself, and I” operation for some time, which was a very intensive phase for me. More
2013 – 2016 / 2014 – 2016
Marco Hochstrasser and Gregory Leproux
“We built Swisscom’s most state-of-the-art cloud”
Marco Hochstrasser and Gregory Leproux especially left their mark on the time in Menlo Park at 1160 Chestnut Street.
The move from 636 Waverly Street in Palo Alto to Menlo Park meant a paradigm shift. Our expansion in the cloud sector demanded a more suitable office, and the new premises had a more corporate style. To me, the change seemed like when a start-up turns into a mature business. More
2016 – 2022
Lukas Peter
“Back to the Roots!”
In spring 2017, we moved the Outpost back to Palo Alto. The main reason for this was the oversized office in Menlo Park, where the original intention had been to build an external production site with over 50 developers for the Swisscom Cloud project. But after that project was stopped, the rental costs were out of proportion to the ten or so employees who were ultimately still here. More
2016 – 2019
Jasmin Samsudeen
“Lots of creative potential and stimulating internationality”
The Outpost Berlin got its start with the project “Siroop.” At the time, Swisscom wanted to build an e-commerce marketplace together with Coop. The foundations for it were laid with the support of experienced entrepreneurs and start-ups, as well experts on platforms and digitalization. Company builders like Rocket Internet often find role models for their companies in business models that have already proved to be effective in the United States or China. More
2016 – 2021
Yanqing Wyrsch
“The constant unpredictability is a major challenge”
The idea for an Outpost in Shanghai arose in 2016. After a detailed analysis of the extent to which Swisscom would be able to operate in China at all and whether it would also add value, a final decision was reached in mid-2017. We now have the status of a ‘representative office’ because the telecom industry is government controlled and therefore no licenses are granted for operational activities. More
Booklet
The Swisscom Outpost history is now available as a booklet in English and German:
Download the booklet here for free