Siemens Pushing OpenScape Cloud Services Through the Channel
Siemens Enterprise Communications is making available its OpenScape unified communications platform and associated offerings as a cloud service, giving end users the full breadth and depth of the solution without having to invest in the necessary hardware. What’s more, the company plans to offer the cloud service only through its channel partners, in an effort to balance its percentage indirect vs. direct sales.
“This is our formal entry into the cloud business, and the focus is on SMB and smaller enterprise space,” said Mark Straton, senior vice president of Global Solutions Marketing at Siemens. “We are taking the OpenScape UC suite and providing it as a cloud service exclusively through our indirect channel,” which right now accounts for only about 25 percent of the company’s annual sales.
OpenScape Cloud Services offers all of the functionality of the premises-based OpenScape solution without the hardware investment, giving channel partners the ability to sell new services into existing accounts and target new accounts without having to sell the accompanying network infrastructure, Straton said. Partners also could purchase the OpenScape Cloud Edition to manage and sell the service directly to their customers, he noted, but the Cloud Services offering eliminates the need to invest in a data center.
Siemens uses data centers strategically located worldwide to host OpenScape Cloud Services, providing redundancy and failover for a reliable, robust UCC solution, he said.
“What makes us unique is we have premise-based solutions, hybrid solutions and now with this service, cloud-based solutions,” Straton noted. “Plus, OpenScape originated as a carrier-class product, so our cloud is a true cloud product.”
Getting Started
Partners reselling OpenScape Cloud Services have at their disposal myriad “base packs” and “booster packs” they can offer their end user customers, from SIP voice to a full-boat UC solution that includes voice, web collaboration and videoconferencing. Pricing varies by pack.
“This marketplace is poised for huge growth,” said Ross Sedgewick, director of Global Marketing at Siemens. “It’s not about displacing important premise-based business but incrementally adding new capabilities for SMB and midmarket customers and supporting those hybrid customers,” such as those who have premises-based voice but cloud-based unified communications solutions.
OpenScape Cloud Services is one of a number of major offerings Siemens is announcing. The company also is releasing OpenScape Office Version 3, a UCC appliance for the SMB space that scales to 500 users; OpenScape Mobile UC Client for Android, which includes OpenScape Communication Gestures including the Call Swipe Gesture that seamlessly transfers calls in progress to other devices; and Enterasys Cloud Wireless, which delivers wireless services as a managed service in a private cloud to enterprise customers. (For those keeping score, networking vendor Enterasys is owned by Siemens.)
“Siemens Enterprise Communications is now in a position to offer products in all these areas –premises, hybrid and cloud,” Straton said. “Now when we go to our channel partners we have an appealing value proposition for them to earn a recurring revenue stream through the cloud services or sell managed services for wireless. It opens a whole new market and new customers for them.”
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