News from Siemens on another interesting win from Siemens.

Siemens Systems Integration Provides Texas School District With Network Foundation For Greater Collaboration, Cost Savings and Business Continuity

Siemens Integration Expertise Delivers a Winning Combination for Malakoff Independent School District

Boca Raton, Fla. — October 1, 2007 — Siemens Communications, Inc. [NYSE: SI] today announced that Malakoff Independent School District (ISD) in Malakoff, Tx. has chosen Siemens as systems integrator for the design and deployment of a next-generation network based on Internet-Protocol (IP) running over optical fiber. The new network will provide a foundation for the school district to deploy advanced VoIP communications and distance learning, among many other capabilities. It will also facilitate greater collaboration, productivity and efficiency among teachers and administrators.

Located about 50 miles southeast of Dallas, the Malakoff ISD and its 200 teachers, staff and administrators serve about 1,200 mostly rural K-12 students who attend one of two elementary schools, a middle school or high school. The distances between facilities can be as much as 25 miles.

Before Siemens helped the Malakoff ISD design and deploy its next-generation network, the school district suffered from an unreliable and fragmented data communications system. To connect its various facilities across the district, it used wireless local area network (WLAN) bridges that were unreliable as a result of frequent outages due to storms. In fact, the average uptime between buildings was only 80 percent. The result of these issues included higher operating costs and greater inefficiencies, not to mention the business disruption due to the outages.

“The time had come to step back and take a good look at the shortcomings of our voice and data infrastructure and determine what we needed to carry us forward,” explained Doug Pitts, the district’s Director of Technology. “Siemens not only helped us with that assessment but also showed us how an open, multivendor service model could deliver the voice and data services we needed to help increase our productivity and collaboration while centralizing administration and maintenance in an effort to achieve lower operating costs. Siemens managed all the vendors throughout the implementation for us so we could focus on our education projects. This was an important value-added service.”

Pitts said that the Malakoff ISD issued a Request For Proposals (RFP) to numerous large integrators from the Dallas area as well as to local value-added resellers. It asked for bids on designing and building a wide-area network for the district with outside fiber for increased reliability and bandwidth; structured cabling for two schools; and the LAN design and deployment for its elementary schools.

“After evaluating all the responses, Siemens emerged as our first choice,” he said. “Siemens had the experience and expertise to manage all three projects, from design through implementation.” Siemens partnered with a leading networking solutions provider along with Malakoff’s cabling vendor and telco to deliver a network that could address the demands of a growing school district’s needs.

“The infrastructure that Siemens architected and that the Malakoff school district now has in place is designed to carry it forward for many years to come,” said Jeff Van Mater, Vice President and General Manager, Western Area, Siemens Communications, Inc.

“Students, faculty, staff and administrators all stand to benefit as the district will be able to roll out new, IP-based services over time. Video sharing, real-time distance learning, faculty training, centralized information repositories and much more are now possible. The Malakoff school district will be a showcase of what schools can be and do. Siemens is dedicated to serving the K-12 market through innovative products and services to promote learning and through our Siemens Foundation grants and scholarships.”

About Siemens
Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) is one of the largest global electronics and engineering companies with reported worldwide sales of $107.4 billion in 2006. Founded 160 years ago, the company is a leader in the areas of 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 $21.4 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 480,000 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 about 15,000 employees globally and headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla. For more information, visit www.usa.siemens.com/communications.