Technology aims to sync users' communications

Siemens Monday will announce IP-based networking software designed to synchronize voice communications, messaging and real-time collaboration tools on a mix of devices, including PCs, cell phones and pagers.

New York-based Verizon Communications last week confirmed that it plans to roll out similar functionality later this year as a service for both corporate and residential customers. Analysts said other telecommunications carriers are also planning such moves.

Mark Straton, senior vice president of global marketing at Siemens Information and Communication Networks Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla., said the Siemens unit's OpenScape Version 1.0 software will provide users with consolidated access to all corporate communications resources. That includes phone calls, voice mail, e-mail, instant messaging and tools for Web, voice and videoconferencing, he said.

Users will be able to configure OpenScape with personalized rules to govern how incoming phone calls and e-mail messages should be forwarded to them, Straton said. Like IM systems, OpenScape supports presence awareness so users can see when other workers are logged onto networks.

Douglass Crawford, director of network services at Kaiser Permanente Health Plan in Oakland, Calif., said the health care provider plans to test OpenScape in a lab and then run a pilot project that's expected to last through year's end. If the software works as promised, OpenScape could improve productivity for many of Kaiser's 135,000 workers and reduce the number of devices that the company has to buy for them, Crawford said.

"Taking voice mail, e-mail and IM and putting them into a portal leverages all the disparate capabilities we have today and drives efficiencies," he said. "So my question is, can Siemens really pull it off?"

Crawford said he needs to evaluate how Kaiser's business units would deploy and use the product and what it would cost to implement. For example, the software could require the addition of new Windows servers and some restructuring of the company's network architecture. Kaiser has also been approached by a Baby Bell offering OpenScape-like functionality as a monthly service, Crawford said, declining to identify the company.

Instead of running on conventional telecommunications switches, OpenScape will be server-based, Straton said. The software will initially work only with Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Server 2003 operating system. But Straton said Siemens plans to add Unix and Linux support within the next two years.