Ericsson’s acquisition of enterprise cloud-based communication platform vendor Vonage for $6.2bn came rather out of the blue, partly because it does not fit snugly with its 5G strategy for corporates and private networks. The move, Ericsson’s biggest buy ever by some distance, consumes a lot of its cash, leaving little over for further manoeuvers that might more directly nourish its broader 5G strategy. Historians of IP-based messaging and universal communications will recall that Vonage was founded in 2001 to serve the then heavily hyped consumer voice over IP field alongside the likes of Skype, which ended up in Microsoft’s hands. Vonage went on ploughing its own furrow, evolving to become a communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) provider, incorporating apps such as reminders…