Siemens Cements Software Focus With UC Offerings

The software-based platform integrates voice, unified communications (UC) and video applications in the enterprise and is designed to break down the silos separating today's traditionally separate voice, video and unified communications systems, enabling a comprehensive suite of UC applications.

According to Mark Straton, senior vice president of enterprise systems marketing, Siemens' "shift in strategy" into software coincides with the looming trend that voice will not remain a standalone vision, but will become a set of services built around software. The jump, however, will thrust Siemens into a growing competitive market. Where the vendor once went toe-to-toe with Avaya or Alcatel, Siemens will now square off against Microsoft, IBM and Cisco, powerhouses in the UC space.

"We either change ourselves, or the world changes for us," Straton said.

The UC Server is pure software that runs in any hardware environment, regardless of vendor, Straton said. Also announced Monday were three applications that run on UC Server: OpenScape Voice Application; OpenScape UC Application V3; and OpenScape Video.

Straton said UC Server can run in virtually any IT or telephony environment, including IP telephony or legacy PBX telephony deployments from Siemens or other vendors, eliminating the need for proprietary technology stacks.

Available April 30, UC Server enables presence, administration, session control and other shared services for the suite of OpenScape UC applications, modular capabilities that can be enabled by activating license keys on a user-by-user basis.

"VARs can sell into any base of customers," Straton said. "It's a good entry point to sell it on top of an in-place telephony environment. It's not a rip-and-replace, but an upgrade."

Straton said the typical expense and complexity of UC solutions were tough barriers for VARs to break through and were often prohibitive to their customers.

Donna Warner, vice president of Black Box Network Services, a Lawrence, Pa.-based solution provider, said since UC Server is non-proprietary it will be attractive to customers who are looking for choices with their UC deployments. The ability to bolt on different parts and not have to rip and replace, she said, makes it more attractive than solutions from Microsoft/Nortel and Cisco.

"Siemens, as they've turned themselves into a software company, have been open by not aligning with another player," she said. "Nortel is riding hard on Microsoft. Not everyone wants to be all Microsoft. They get a little tired of the whole 'it has to be Microsoft' environment. And Cisco is not yet there right now, and that's what customers are saying."

Warner said Cisco's UC solutions are expensive and there are feature tradeoffs, With Siemens she can offer customers just voice or migrate them to other UC applications as needed.

So far, Warner said, her clients are interested in UC, but are spending time learning about it. Some are dabbling in certain portions of UC, such as VoIP and messaging. She said she sees a split between customers who want to deploy full UC now and others who want a phased migration, and Siemens modular setup enables either.

"This cements Siemens' shift from hardware to software," she said. "Software is going to be the way to go."

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