NoJitter’s Eric Krapf’s been liveblogging the Gores/Siemens press conference this morning and nailed all the right quotes, including the spin. As expected, they are using Gore’s turnaround of Enterasys as an example. The turnaround was from dead to irrelevant. I’d hardly boast about that as a success story. Surely they have something better? This is the most press Enterasys has had since the late 90s.
Back on topic, I bring up Enterasys since Siemens current CCO Zimmerman states that Enterasys and SER will be rolled up under Siemens. I like this move as it give the JV some legs in the data world. Not much, but it’s worlds more than they had and at least a story to tell competitively against the 800lb gorilla that is Cisco. I hate to paint it as putting lipstick on a pig but unfortunately I think that’s how it’ll turn out given SEN’s state and pitiful marketshare/name of Enterasys. I’d be happy to be proved wrong as I’ve noted a few times in the past that Siemens tends to really get UC from a strategic perspective.
So, what does all this mean? Nothing for the immediate future. If you’re a Siemen’s customer, you’re probably in Europe and asleep by now, but you’re also happy that the Gores group will keep SEN mostly intact and keep support for current products on the same roadmap. They’ll be moving to a mostly software platform in voice and UC, a better late than never move. All in all, not much changes. Siemens will remain a small player in UC with a great story and it’s likely any foothold in voice will be eroded by Cisco, Microsoft and others in the UC wave.
Google has made some interesting moves lately that point to a move into the unified communications arena. Today Google named Patrick Pichette CFO. Pichette’s experience at BCE in Canada could be a boon for Google as it explands its offering and possibly peers with service providers for a UC offering. Picture this, a merge of GTalk, GMail and the power of the Google Apps and Gadgets APIs with the installed base and technology of Skype.
Skype has underperformed since being purchased by ebay. I can’t say I’m surprised. That acquisition always puzzled me from a business integration perspective. Ebay could offload Skype to Google which would make ebay’s shareholders happy. Google would likely pick up Skype for a song and it could provide a lot of value as the core to an “all-google” unified communications offering. It’s another area where Google could compete with Microsoft coming from the grassroots users upward and challenging in the enterprise applications arena.
Last month John and I both read between the lines on Mark Straton’s UC Summit keynote to see Siemens was actively being shopped. This week Siemens CFO Joe Kaeser expressed the difficulty in finding a suitor and said Siemens might be willing to enter into a partnership, possibly temporary, with any potential buyer to seal the deal. He also said that interest in SEN has recently picked back up and I think we’ll seen an announcement before the end of calendar Q3.
It’s well known that Nortel and Cerebus Capital have been the most aggressive in their attempts to acquire SEN, however that rumor has been swirling for almost two years with no additional traction. Could it be a smokescreen in Nortel’s continued quest to stay relevant and Cerebus nothing more than feelers? According to NoJitter’s Brian Riggs “Siemens Enterprise Communications CEO Thomas Zimmerman describes his company as in a state of ‘advanced stages of talk with various partners’.” Unless a new suitor has popped up and is staying quiet, either Nortel or Cerebus is ready to make a move. Nortel could see this as a cheap way of picking up an additional 10% marketshare in the US and a much greater position in EMEA while Cerebus might look at reorganizing the business and reselling it in pieces for a profit. In the latter situation, Nortel might still be a suitor but it wouldn’t represent such a bargain.
On a purely UC note, I don’t see Siemens’ OpenScape platform surviving the transition. Despite an impressive featureset it’s never gotten the market penetration to be a leader. Between a few significant wins for both IBM’s Lotus Sametime, Microsoft’s OCS and the MSFT/Nortel venture to move UC to the cloud, Siemens has been mostly left in the dust in the UC market.