Siemens Enterprise Communications and Shared Technologies Partner to Help Ease Adoption of Next-Generation UC Technologies

BOCA RATON, Fla., Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group), a premier provider of enterprise communications solutions, today announced that it has entered into a five-year partnership with Shared Technologies to provide enterprise customers with best practices for leveraging their existing technology investments, while providing a clear and future-proof migration path for the adoption of next-generation unified communications (UC). As part of the agreement, Shared Technologies, a premier provider of business communications systems, will offer SEN Group's flagship OpenScape UC Server and suite of applications, as well a supporting services. The OpenScape portfolio is integral to the SEN Group's OpenPath methodology which ensures customers can meet their business goals by providing the most efficient and cost effective route to UC benefits, regardless of infrastructure. By giving employees state-of-the art UC collaboration tools, organizations can not only increase productivity, mobility and customer responsiveness, they can reduce network and conferencing costs, as well as reduce hardware footprints for greener IT.

"UC has the potential to change the way companies do business by cost-effectively increasing productivity and driving revenue," said Melanie Turek, Industry Principal, Enterprise Communications at Frost & Sullivan. "But deploying a wide range of UC technologies can be a dizzying task for any IT department, and most won't have the skills or mandate to do everything at once. Rather, companies should rely on those technology vendors and partners that can help them evaluate their most pressing communications needs, then roll out a platform that will let them add new features and applications as time, money and user demand allow."

Shared Technologies specializes in the design, implementation and ongoing maintenance and support of communication solutions for enterprise customers across the United States, including Nortel customers. Like SEN Group, Shared Technologies views UC adoption as an evolution, not a unique event.

"In today's economic climate, organizations are watching their spending more closely than ever, and very few can afford the costs and upheaval of a rip-and-replace strategy to reap the benefits of UC," said Tony Parella, president and CEO of Shared Technologies. "Customers should have multiple options to choose from and should be able to upgrade their business communications at their own pace."

The SEN Group's OpenScape Voice and OpenScape UC Application are industry leading communications solutions that take advantage of industry standards such as SIP and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to help customers reduce costs, ease integration, and extend existing network investments. By leveraging a data center approach, OpenScape voice and UC services can be over-laid in existing IT or telephony environments, eliminating traditional barriers between communications systems by providing unmatched scalability and virtually seamless integrating with other popular enterprise-class solutions and devices.

As part of SEN Group's Go Forward! partner program, Shared Technologies will have access to tailored training and support services, including award-winning marketing tools such as Digital Channel.

"Our partnership with Shared Technologies further demonstrates that we are continuing to deliver on the channel vision we outlined last year and expanding our presence in North America, by teaming with companies that clearly understand their market and their customer's needs," said Mark Vayda, president of the SEN Group. "With Shared Technologies' deep industry expertise, state-of-the-art integrated tools and services and commitment to customer satisfaction, they are uniquely positioned to design and deliver tailored solutions that can grow with a customer's business, while delivering the lowest TCO and highest ROI possible."

About Shared Technologies

Founded in 1974, Shared Technologies is a recognized national total solutions provider and supplier of converged and IP telephony technology to the national enterprise community. Shared Technologies is a privately held corporation, based in Coppell, Texas, operating in over forty markets in the United States serving the Fortune 1000 and customers throughout the U.S. in vertical markets such as finance, hospitality, education, and healthcare. For more information about Shared Technologies, visit www.sharedtechnologies.com. Shared Technologies, the Shared Technologies name and logo are trademarks of Shared Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.

About Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group)

The SEN Group is a premier provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, including voice, network infrastructure and security solutions that use open, standards-based architectures to unify communications and business applications for a seamless collaboration experience. This award-winning "Open Communications" approach enables organizations to improve productivity and reduce costs through easy-to-deploy solutions that work within existing IT environments, delivering operational efficiencies. It is the foundation for the company's OpenPath® commitment that enables customers to mitigate risk and cost-effectively adopt unified communications. Jointly owned by The Gores Group and Siemens AG, SEN Group companies include Siemens Enterprise Communications, Cycos, and Enterasys Networks.

For more information about the SEN Group or Enterasys please visit www.siemens-enterprise.com or www.enterasys.com

Note: Siemens Enterprise Communications & Co K.G. is a trademark licensee of Siemens AG. HiPath, OpenOffice, OpenScape and OpenStage, are registered trademarks of Siemens Enterprise Communications & Co K.G. or its affiliates. All other company, brand, product and service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

This release contains forward-looking statements based on beliefs of Siemens' management. The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "forecast," "expect," "intend," "plan," "should," and "project" are used to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the company's current views with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause the actual results to be materially different, including, among others, changes in general economic and business conditions, changes in currency exchange rates and interest rates, introduction of competing products, lack of acceptance of new products or services and changes in business strategy. Actual results may vary materially from those projected here. Siemens does not intend or assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Siemens Enterprise Communications Group