Business VoIP

According to statistics compiled by Sage Research (Unified Communications (News - Alert) Application: Uses and Benefits, January 2006), the average small to medium-sized enterprise uses 6.4 types of communication device and 4.8 communications applications.

 

Furthermore, 52% of employees use multiple methods to contact someone, somewhere on a daily basis, yet despite all these attempts they fail to get connected 36% of the time.

 

That 36% statistic is a big number. And that means missed opportunities, lost productivity, and most certainly money left on the table.

 

Siemens has decided to help SMBs combat that lost productivity by introducing its latest unified communications solution, Siemens HiPath OpenOffice ME.

 

The solution is designed to help small to medium businesses (in this case Siemens defines SMB as the 20–150 employee space) increase productivity and efficiency by enabling them with a variety of communications, collaboration and mobility features.

 

Currently slated for availability in February of 2008, Siemens expects the solution to price at approximately $270 per seat, before channel discounts. Siemens is currently expanding their channel in the United States to address the market opportunity.

 

Each user license includes the Siemens OpenScape Office unified communications suite tweaked for the SMB market as well as support for HiPath Wireless Access Points to enable SMBs to take advantage of enterprise mobility.

 

For larger WLAN installations Siemens is introducing the HiPath Wireless C20 Controller.

 

One of the key elements of the HiPath OpenOffice that was impressed upon me during a meeting with Siemens’ U.S. vice president of product and service management Al Baker, was the solution’s simplicity and ease of use. The HiPath OpenOffice is engineered to be installed in just a few hours, with no additional servers, applications or accessories. Also, the unified administration and Web-based management features of the solution are designed to make it easy to run the system once it has been installed.

 

As far as the “hot features” list, here’s a breakdown of some of what the new unified communications solution offers SMB customers:

 

 

According to Krithi Rao, Industry Analyst — Enterprise Communications (News - Alert), ICT Frost & Sullivan, “HiPath OpenOffice is a tightly integrated advanced communications solution for the SMB domain. Siemens has leveraged its heritage in HiPath voice and OpenScape unified communications and has built this UC appliance from the ground up. By keeping the interests of the SMB users and the channel in mind, Siemens has included simple provisioning and pricing structures. The move marks a well respected brand taking this market seriously.”

 

Siemens has high hopes for this product and for success in the SMB marketplace. While not ceding any segment of the market to competition, Siemens spokespeople did admit that with Microsoft and Cisco (News - Alert) going hard after the large enterprise unified communications space it’s becoming crowded at that level. The SMB market is more wide open, and certainly provides more opportunity for someone with a good solution and a good channel to enjoy some success. With HiPath OpenOffice and a strategy to attract channel partners, Siemens believes they have the right combination to offer unified communications to the SMB.