Unified Communications Featured Article

Siemens Enterprise Communications Group, a provider of enterprise communications solutions, reportedly has entered into a five-year partnership with Shared Technologies to provide enterprise customers with best practices for leveraging their existing technology investments, while providing a clear and future-proof migration path for the adoption of next-generation unified communications.

 

Shared Technologies (News - Alert), a premier provider of business communications systems, will offer SEN Group’s flagship OpenScape UC Server and suite of applications, as well a supporting services as part of the pact.

 

“In today’s economic climate, organizations are watching their spending more closely than ever, and very few can afford the costs and upheaval of a rip-and-replace strategy to reap the benefits of UC,” said Tony Parella, president and CEO of Shared Technologies, in a statement, adding that customers should have multiple options to choose from and should be able to upgrade their business communications at their own pace.

 

SEN Group officials said that the company’s OpenScape Voice and OpenScape UC Application are communications solutions that take advantage of industry standards such as SIP and Service Oriented Architecture to help customers reduce costs, ease integration and extend existing network investments.

 

Company officials said that by leveraging a data center approach, OpenScape voice and UC services can be overlaid in existing IT or telephony environments, eliminating traditional barriers between communications systems by providing unmatched scalability and virtually seamless integrating with other popular enterprise-class solutions and devices.

 

“Our partnership with Shared Technologies further demonstrates that we are continuing to deliver on the channel vision we outlined last year and expanding our presence in North America, by teaming with companies that clearly understand their market and their customer’s needs,” said Mark Vayda, president of the SEN Group.

 

Vayda said that with Shared Technologies’ deep industry expertise, state-of-the-art integrated tools and services and commitment to customer satisfaction, it is uniquely positioned to design and deliver tailored solutions that can grow with a customer’s business, while delivering the lowest TCO and highest ROI possible.

 

In December SEN Group announced that West Yorkshire Police, Britain’s fourth largest police force, is the first to procure smart card technology via the National Policing Improvement Authority (NPIA) Identity and Access Management (IAM) framework.

The solution will allow West Yorkshire’s officers access to Central Services (IAM CS), established by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) for secure information sharing as an essential foundation of the upcoming Police National Database (PND), due to be launched in 2010.

 

West Yorkshire’s decision to procure an end-to-end identity and access (IAM) solution via the SEN Group framework demonstrates a commitment to sharing confidential and potentially critical case information with police forces nationwide.