Siemens launches mobile unified-comms suite

Siemens Enterprise Communications has launched its OpenScape Mobility unified-communications software.

The company, which is a joint venture between Siemens and the Gores Group private-equity firm, claims it is the first to offer a full range of interoperable unified-communications (UC) products including enterprise telephony, video, wireless and fixed/mobile convergence (FMC), and the usual UC features of presence-based instant messaging and telephony.

OpenScape Mobility, which was unveiled on Tuesday, incorporates new versions of the HiPath MobileConnect FMC tool and the HiPath Wireless LAN portfolio, alongside the company's new OpenScape Enterprise Mobile Client.

Disruptive Analysis founder Dean Bubley is quoted in a Siemens statement as saying the mobile UC market combines "the user-centric benefits of mobility, with the features and manageability of enterprise UC".

"Together, these should enable increased productivity, improved 'reachability' and help drive down overall costs of business mobile communications," Bubley said. "Vendors that can understand both the unique aspects of wireless and the realities of corporate UC will lead this new market."

Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEN) claims the new version of HiPath Wireless makes it possible for the first time to use OpenScape high-definition video over 802.11n Wi-Fi.

The OpenScape Enterprise Mobile Client works with the OpenScape UC Application Enterprise Server Edition, and can be installed on a range of RIM, Symbian and Windows Mobile handsets.

SEN was created in July, when Siemens sold 51 percent of its enterprise communications business to the Gores Group. The new joint venture also brought in other Gores assets, namely the network equipment and security supplier Enterasys and the call-centre software maker SER Solutions.