Siemens Updates OpenScape UC Platform

Siemens Enterprise Networks (SEN) has released the latest version of its OpenScape unified communications platform, with added features that could make it an even more attractive offering for solution providers.

The latest version of OpenScape, OpenScape Voice V4, features OpenScape Branch, designed with branch offices in mind, and OpenScape Concierge, designed for call attendants.

OpenScape Branch enables companies to extend call capabilities across multiple locations, utilizing a SIP proxy and a session border controller for local SIP trunking connections. Concierge, meanwhile, extends the features of OpenScape Voice to call attendants, including real-time presence status information for users, call queue and corporate directory integration.

And, of course, OpenScape is based on open communications standards, allowing it to be integrated with multivendor systems – a plus for customers who don’t want to do full-scale rip and replace of their communications network. It is a component of SEN’s OpenScape UC Server, which featurs enterprise-grade voice services, carrier-grade scalability and reliability, IP least-cost routing, videoconferencing, mobility, unified messaging and role-based UC applications.

Branch and Concierge are but two nifty additions to an already attractive palette of services offered by SEN – and, indeed, the open standards community at large. And while Branch and Concierge may not seem like huge advancements to some, they do signal another step in the evolution of open standards communications – recognizing and adding those features that folks take for granted in legacy systems, thereby making open communications, on the surface, as “normal” as the tried-and-true PBX.

Which may make it an even easier sell for solution providers.