Johannesburg, 20 May 2003
Siemens Enterprise Solutions gave its customers and partners a look into the converged office of the future at a breakfast in Sandton today. The company detailed a set of planned and existing solutions such as unified messaging platforms, enterprise integration and a bouquet of voice-over-data solutions.
Central to the company`s vision is the HiPath series of Internet protocol (IP)-based voice platforms, which has represented the company`s data-centric voice vision for three years.
Fred Maurus, head of Siemens Technology Management, says the HiPath provides customers with choice (a large range of products in the HiPath portfolio), evolution (adapting to advances in convergence) and value - it offers return on investment, the basic litany of IT buyers everywhere.
"With HiPath, the aim is to combine the feature-richness of classic voice with the convergent capabilities of IP networks, in order to save on infrastructure or on the basis of central management of voice, video and other data, and to improve efficiencies.
"We all know things in telecoms are not so 'lekker` today," Maurus said, adding that all telecoms players are affected. "But Siemens has the financial muscle to keep abreast of developments and spend money on telecoms research and development. Telecoms attracts a significant part of the $5 billion per year that we spend on R&D."
What`s coming up?
Maurus says companies are becoming fussier when it comes to private telecoms equipment, insisting on carrier-class scalability and reliability.
"They want a common end-user experience, no matter what the device and its problems. They need voice, image and data over the same network and they definitely want mobility and presence-based services, eg knowing on a variety of platforms when a colleague is online and available."
In the present move from time-division multiplexing to hybrid and pure voice-over-IP, there is a general trend towards the information and communications technology world. Hybrid systems have a longer shelf life, Maurus comments, whereas native IP solutions do not last as long, so some HiPaths, such as the 3000 and 4000, will have use for years to come, and the 5000 not.
Siemens is undertaking a number of joint ventures to attack future markets. One such deal is with Microsoft. The two companies are co-developing OpenScape, one platform for supply of "real-time voice, video and cellular integration, linkage into customer relationship management back-ends and unified messaging".
In this one interface, the companies offer presence-based communications and multimedia conferencing. This includes a browser, seeing an image of the person, having graphics or presentations simultaneously available and manipulable, and communicating with one another via an array of modes - telephoning, e-mail or others.
Speech has interesting possibilities, including text-to-speech e-mail read-outs, or automated voice recognition, Maurus says. In addition, there will be scheduling.
These comms portals will be available on any device, Maurus claims. "Think of the applications possible here."
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