I have been following Siemens and their unified communications strategy even before we called it UC. Their strategy has evolved but their direction has been surprisingly consistent. Siemens worked with Microsoft on solutions we now call UC. They were ahead of the market but it looks like they now have an opportunity to become a market leader in the UC space.

My colleagues have posted several blogs and articles on UCStrategies.com discussing Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEC) joint venture (JV) with The Gores Group (TGG).

• Marty Parker - “SEN has arguably the best software stack for UC solutions in the entire industry in their OpenScape Communications Suite.”
• Don Van Doren - “My suggestion is that Gores and SEN strive to become the systems integrator of choice for integrating voice communications into business processes.”
• Paul Stockford - “Siemens in unquestionably a power to be reckoned with in the emerging UC market, but they’re a non-entity in the well-established contact center market.”
• Michael Finneran - “In the near-term, mobility could be the joint venture’s ace-in-the-hole.”
• David Yedwab - “the US focus of The Gores Group and its contribution of Enterasys and SER Solutions to the JV is logically designed to have significant positive impact”

The JV will be well positioned from the start with $350M Euros for investment to shore up any product or distribution deficiencies and $500M Euros in working capital (and no debt) to cover any losses - which are unlikely with SEC’s recent cost cutting initiatives and TGG’s practice of turning acquired companies profitable within months of acquisition (JV in this case).

The challenge - will the new joint venture be able to take advantage of this opportunity. I have always felt - Siemens has a great UC story but nobody is buying it - why? I have already mentioned they were early to market and, they have a great marketing executive in Mark Straton - so why haven’t they been more successful? A simple explanation - Siemens is too large to easily evolve with the changing market and technology. The market is changing but Siemens corporate was not agile enough to change quickly to leverage the opportunity (you can read - challenges at Avaya and Alcatel Lucent into this).

To become a market leader they need to change the way enterprise customers look at communications. This is something we at UCStrategies.com are passionate about. We believe the vendors needs to support what they already know - the PBX is changing from the center of communications to a part of an enterprises communications solution. UC is communications integrated to optimize business processes and is not about buying a new PBX.

SEC appears to be the only vendor positioned for the changes UC brings. Most vendors have not been able to change their business model and still require the revenue and profits associated with sales of new IP-PBX’s. SEC is position to be successful by selling UC solutions - no matter whose PBX is part of the solution.

Too many enterprise customers are stuck in the same old model that is slowly killing past industry communications giants. The first thing they think about is replacing their current PBX with an IP PBX that will migrate to UC. They should be thinking - how can I communications enable a business process. If we need a new PBX great but that is not the core decisions process.

The SEC and the JV has an incredible opportunity. In not too many years we could look back and say Alec Gores was a genius. He leveraged an opportunity and his company became a market leader. Time will tell.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Jim Burton
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Over the past four years Siemens has made it pretty clear to industry that they are not interested in the contact center market. The company’s commitment to that market has continued to wane over the years to the point where many industry watchers, me included, consider Siemens to be a non-player in the contact center industry today.

That’s why yesterday’s announcement of Siemens’ joint venture with The Gores Group barely caused a blip on the contact center industry radar. While the unified communications (UC) industry was fairly excited about the possibilities this new JV could bring to the burgeoning UC market, the contact center industry reacted with a collective yawn. There is a bit of irony here.

In earlier posts to this blog I took the position that the contact center will be the launching point for UC into the greater enterprise. Of course there will be exceptions to this, but I still believe that UC will begin to see mass market momentum when the contact center adopts it for its own. Siemens in unquestionably a power to be reckoned with in the emerging UC market, but they’re a non-entity in the well-established contact center market. Thus we have the irony that seems to have kept the contact center industry politely disinterested in the Siemens/Gores Group announcement.

There’s another small but potentially interesting kink in this new arrangement and that is the fact that The Gores Group owns SER, the contact management/predictive dialer company out of Dulles, VA, and they’re throwing SER in as part of the deal. Now, SER is no Aspect but it’s no slouch either and I question whether the new Siemens/Gores JV can afford to ignore it in deference to Siemens’ apathy toward the contact center industry. I foresee a bit of a quandary as the new Siemens Enterprise Communications comes to life.

Long term, the problem will probably take care of itself. Siemens is not going to take its eye off the UC ball but it is going to have to come to terms with the role of UC in the contact center. For the short term Siemens will have to follow the majority stakeholder Gores Group in its support of SER’s products and the contact center industry. This is not, however, where I see Siemens in the long run.

Long-term, I believe Siemens’ role in the industry will evolve with the industry itself. As the UC industry sorts itself out, I believe the players will become increasingly specialized. For example, one company might specialize in UC software. Another might specialize in infrastructure. Siemens’ specialization will be services. Siemens Enterprise Communications has made noise about transforming itself into a services company for years. Now it is out from under the heavy hand of Siemens AG, it finally has the chance to actually do it.

As for SER? Probably acquired by Aspect.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Paul Stockford
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