Alex Lewis gave us his color on the Siemens Gores situation as it was announced. Now over at UC Strategies they weight in on the Siemens Gores deal with some observations. All this playing out as Unified Communications is being debated among the experts and vendors.
Post 1 is from Marty Parker where he tables a modest proposal for Siemens and Gores.
Post 2 is a followup from Don Van Doren where he adds his ‘addendum’ to Marty’s proposal
Marty suggests the following.. “What if they told all of their installed base customers that the new SEN is different? The new SEN will not declare end-of-support on all that good Siemens technology that still works. Instead, the new SEN recommends that the customers don’t waste their time replacing PBXs with IP PBXs and buying new phones, but rather spend their time and money installing OpenScape, connected to any PBX they own (old or new, of any brand). Since OpenScape provides the complete set of communications tools that integrate seamlessly with both Microsoft and IBM (SEN has alliances for this with both companies) and with the enterprise back-office or hosted solutions (think SAP, Salesforce.com and more), SEN has the best chance of any company to come out as the market leader in Unified Communications.”
Don suggeststhe following ..“There are several paths. Siemens could “go it alone” and choose one of several models such as Genesys Labs, IBM Global Services, DiData, Accenture, or others. Or, they could work closely with their VAR network to develop an ecosystem of integrators.
So, Gores and SEN, go beyond the traditional voice communications business. Integration services is where it’s at in the unfolding unified communications marketplace! “
As Cerebus taps out on the Siemens deal the Gores Group may be taking their place according to NoJitter and various european media outlets. The Gores group is probably best known for bailing out Enterasys right after they hit rock bottom. Outside of their niche IDS product Dragon has anyone even heard of them in the last 10 years?
A better question, what’s Gores’ infatuation with failing companies? Siemens has been on the sale block for nearly a year and no one’s biting. Wonder why? I don’t. A stagnant division in a crowded market with significant barriers to entry. Gores what are you thinking?
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.