Siemens Enterprise Communications Announces OpenScape Voice V4 with OpenScape Branch for Seamless Voice Across Branch Offices

BOCA RATON, Fla., Feb. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group), a premier provider of enterprise communications solutions, today announced the availability of OpenScape Voice V4, the next release of SEN Group's award-winning software-based voice solution. The new version features OpenScape Branch and OpenScape Concierge, two capabilities designed to provide new flexible deployment options and improve the customer experience. The complete unified voice solution is designed to lower the total cost of ownership and increase efficiencies across the enterprise by leveraging its data center approach to ease administration and increase scalability.

OpenScape Branch helps deliver scalable, feature-rich communications for cost-conscious customers with multiple branch offices. It allows customers to streamline business communications by extending seamless voice services across all company offices with a SIP Proxy for survivability and a Session Border Controller (SBC) for local SIP trunking connections. It provides for management integration on a common portal for faster and easier installation and integration, and can help reduce audio conferencing costs, call charges and power consumption.

OpenScape Concierge is the industry's first true unified communications (UC) Attendant Console application. OpenScape Concierge extends the benefits of UC beyond desktop users to also support telephone attendants, such as switchboard operators, with real-time UC-based presence status information for contacts across both OpenScape Voice and HiPath 4000 systems. It also supports call queue and corporate directory integration, allowing telephone attendants to more easily direct incoming calls to anyone in the organization.

"Customers such as those in the financial and retail verticals, with multiple branch offices, are looking for ways to upgrade legacy systems to enterprise class, open, IP-based software solutions to improve business processes and stay competitive in the marketplace," said Eve Aretakis, executive vice president of voice and application platforms. "And as enterprises also work within limited budgets, a data center approach like the one offered with OpenScape makes perfect sense. As an open, pure IP solution, it protects the customer's existing investments by overlaying onto existing architecture. It not only takes advantage of industry standards such as SIP and SOA to provide the most innovative voice solutions in the market today, but with almost one million users world-wide, it has been field proven in real customer deployments."

OpenScape Voice V4, built on a native IP-based software platform, is designed to be a cost-effective option for replacing legacy voice systems. Built on the SEN Group's unified OpenSOA applications framework, it is a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based enterprise voice application and a key element of the OpenScape UC Server, which incorporates enterprise grade voice services with carrier grade scalability and reliability, IP least-cost routing, video conferencing, mobility, unified messaging and role-based UC applications. A fully survivable SIP-based application that delivers more services to the edge of the network, OpenScape Voice V4 offers survivability for media server features such as tones and conferencing, as well as multi-line hunt group and call forwarding. It allows for uniform, ubiquitous access to multimedia devices and virtually seamless, standards-based integration with other enterprise-class communications for communications-enabled business processes (CEBP). SBC functionality and SIP trunking built into the solution help lower total cost of ownership.

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