This post, and announcement, from Siemens is so much more than the press release can convey, that's it's a pretty extensive blog post, including a video from me for those who might not actually read, a Powerpoint subset of the major Siemens brief, and some graphics here to ensure you don't overlook the magnitiude of this announcement. And I'm cross posting it on both the Realtime Unified Communications Community and my own Digital Common Sense blog. It's big news in unified communications. Yes, this really is big. What I would call a catalytic event. Siemens' announcement is a catalyst for change. it gives end users a tangible value for VoIP. It truly presents a tool for unified communications that actually does leverage IP and integrate resources.

Regular readers know I'm a Siemens fan. I think they're innovative leaders who truly light the way for the large vendors. The other day I got an early pre-briefing on this big announcement from Martin Northend, Siemens' Director of Global Portfolio Marketing for Small and Medium Enterprise. And there's a buzz phrase Siemens is using here for a very specific reason - Personal Fixed Mobile Convenience with Style. Pay attention to that, because it matters now and it leaves some open doors for the near future with fixed mobile convergence.





If you're keen on details, I took a Powerpoint they provided on the announcement, and with Siemens' permission, did a little editing to only share what's meaningful to users. It's available for your review here - Siemens OpenStage.

I also thought it important to share some visuals here. The telephone set, other than gaining a touch pad to replace the rotary dial, hasn't changed as far back as anyone can remember. Siemens is changing that. THey believe one reason VoIP has been slow to take off is that the user experience never changed. We talk about all the things VoIP allows in terms of integration, but nobody implements them. The VoIP phone, even the scftphone on a PC, is still just a replication of the features and buttons on a standard old telephone. Most people still don't know how to take advantage of 90% of the features their corporate telephone system can provide.

What's really important to note is that these sets are not proprietary to the Siemens VoIP platforms. It's called OpenStage SIP for a reason. It's open and can work with any SIP platform. In fact the hardware isn't even branded with Siemens logo so that partners can use the screen space to label or brand as they like. You can brand this phone to your enterprise with your own corporate logo.

Here's one of Siemens new telephone sets. Note the full video screen and perhaps most important, the five-way navigation wheel. The telephone has changed, influenced by the iPod and the mobile phone. Integrated bluetooth for headsets - the same onw we use with our mobile. WiFi capable. In short, the bigges change in telephone sets in a hundred years.





Here's the idle screen for while you're working on other things.


The incoming call screen is much like we've come to expect from our mobile phones. Caller ID triggers a lookup in the address book, which can be shared with both the PC workstation and the mobile phone. We get to see who's calling, just like on the mobile.





Easy access to the full phone book. Whether it's your own local contact list, or a corporate LDAP directory, acess from the phone is now easy.





The telephone station now becomes a true platform for launching corporate applications. Training videos and web conferences can be made available to the telephone set itself.





The telephone set becomes a versatile, multifunction instrument, leveraging the real power of IP and VoIP. Unified communicaitions is more than just talk.




In short, as you can tell, I'm excited by an impressed with Siemens latest. They continue to lead the way and light the path to the future of unified communications. The folks at Siemens are innovators and leaders, and deserve some real kudos for one of the sharpest innovations in telecommuncations in years. I expect they'll see whopping huge success with this effort.

Here's the press release to wrap it all up.

Siemens’ New OpenStage™ Family of SIP Phones Provide Personal Fixed Mobile Convenience with Style

Revolutionary Design Offers Intuitive and Rich Communications Experience While Setting the Benchmark for Open Communications Productivity

BOCA RATON, Fla. — December 11, 2006 —Siemens Communications, Inc., today announced OpenStage™, a new line of stylish IP telephones that bring an open communications hardware platform to the desktop for the first time. With four different models ranging from basic to advanced, OpenStage phones feature a revolutionary new design that combines ease-of-use with PC functionality – the biggest change in the telephone interface since the pushbutton phone replaced the rotary dialer. In addition, OpenStage phones utilize Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to integrate wired, wireless and IP communications to invoke new conferencing and call features such as “push to conference,” desktop call management, “presence” based calling, and more. The phones also support compatible third-party applications through standards-based technology such as Java, HTML, WML and XML so that they can become a key interface for everyday enterprise business applications.

OpenStage introduces a touch sensitive wheel, called TouchGuide™ that allows easy access to the menu-driven user interface. The TouchSlider™ controls the volume of the handset, ringer and speaker phone, and there are touch sensitive pre-set and programmable keys that provide easy access to frequently used applications and features, such as address books, voicemail, conferencing, and speed dial. OpenStage also lets you dial using hands-free voice commands or a conventional keypad. It also features a high-quality speaker phone that has been specially designed for conference calls, and can operate multiple connections from the same desktop.

“End-users in business environments are faced with an ever-increasing variety of communications capabilities, devices, interfaces and modes. Efforts to streamline and integrate these capabilities, and to make the most of the latest in navigation techniques, are welcome and will get the attention of buyers,” said Jerry Caron, Vice President, Current Analysis. “Innovative systems, such as the Siemens Enterprise Communications Open Stage portfolio, make access to sophisticated capabilities easier and more intuitive, thus inherently raising the relevance of the capabilities themselves.”

Built-in Bluetooth support also lets you use a Bluetooth headset with the OpenStage deskphone for hands-free operation. A V.Card exchange even allows you to transfer contacts between compatible mobile phones and the desk phone. A USB port is available to backup data, such as personal contacts, as well as to connect to a wireless LAN using a WLAN dongle. With network support, you can readily access a corporate phone directory using an LDAP client, or gain public phone directory access using XML to look up new contacts.

“OpenStage is the missing link that integrates cellular, the Internet and the wired desktop,” said Thomas Zimmermann, Chief Operating Officer of Siemens Enterprise Communications. “We designed OpenStage to deliver mobile convenience in a fixed device, providing instant access that is always available and easy to drive. And this line of IP telephones offer a new, rich communications experience that combines style elements with the convenience of a mobile phone.”

OpenStage is designed to help organizations improve productivity and streamline workflow by integrating system-wide communications into the most-used office device, the telephone handset. Since it is an open application platform, OpenStage gives IS departments and third party developers more flexibility to write and deploy a wide range of value-added applications that can make the phone a key interface for enterprise applications and that can speed communications and workflow.

For example, Java applications that run on a PC, mobile phone, or PDA can now be readily ported to run on the OpenStage phone. Using HTML, the phones can be used as an interface for hosted applications, such as timesheets, calendars, or public phone books. WML support makes it compatible with applications developed for mobile phones, such as access to traffic news. Support for XML also makes it easy to customize OpenStage for any number of users, such as an interface for building controls, to customize responses to incoming calls, or to create “tell me when” applications that monitor for specific conditions, such as inventory running below a preset threshold. OpenStage is part of LifeWorks, Siemens’ vision for open communications and seamless collaboration across multiple protocols, networks, and devices.

OpenStage phones will retail starting at $295. They will be offered through Siemens Alliance partners.

About Siemens
Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) is one of the largest global electronics and engineering companies with reported worldwide sales of $96 billion in fiscal 2005. Founded nearly 160 years ago, the company is a leader in the areas Medical, Power, Automation and Control, Transportation, Information and Communications, Lighting, Building Technologies, Water Technologies and Services and Home Appliances. With its U.S. corporate headquarters in New York City, Siemens in the USA has sales of $18.8 billion and employs approximately 70,000 people throughout all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Eleven of Siemens' worldwide businesses are based in the United States. With its global headquarters in Munich, Siemens AG and its subsidiaries employ 460,000 people in 190 countries. For more information on Siemens in the United States: www.usa.siemens.com

About Siemens Communications, Inc.
Siemens Communications, Inc. is one of the world’s leading vendors of Open Communications solutions for enterprises of all sizes, enabling business processes to be more productive, faster and more secure – with any device, network or information technology infrastructure. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens AG with 17,000 employees globally and headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla. For more information, visit www.usa.siemens.com/communications

Note: Siemens, OpenStage, TouchGuide, TouchSlider and LifeWorks are registered trademarks of Siemens AG or its subsidiaries and 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.

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