Siemens Enterprise Communications

Background: heritage (1847–2006)

Siemens Communications traces its origins to Siemens & Halske (German legal name: Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske), founded by Werner von Siemens on 12 October 1847. Siemens' first invention was the pointer telegraph. In the latter half of the 19th century, the company built long-distance telegraph lines, encompassing major projects in Germany and Russia, and the monumental Indo-European telegraph line stretching over 11,000 km from London to Calcutta. In 1897, Siemens & Halske went public.

During the first half of the 20th century, the company undertook a series of mergers and spin-offs, leading to the formation of three separate companies. The original company, Siemens & Halske, focused on communications engineering. Siemens-Schuckertwerke was founded in 1903 to develop electric power engineering. Finally, in 1932, Siemens-Reiniger-Werke was founded to specialize in electro-medical equipment. In 1966, through a major restructuring process, these main companies merged to form Siemens.

In the late 1970s, Siemens focused on information and communications technology (ICT). In 1978, it established Siemens Communication Systems, which, in 1985, was reorganized into two divisions: Siemens Communication Systems for public network products, and Siemens Information Systems for PBX and computer-related products. Entering the globalization era of the 1990s, these two divisions made acquisitions. In 1989, the PBX division initiated a structured purchase of ROLM from IBM, renaming it ROLM Systems, and completed the purchase in 1992 as Siemens-ROLM Communications. The same year, the company acquired a 40% stake in GEC Plessey Telecommunications (GPT) which evolved into the UK operations of the current company. In 1991, the carrier networks division acquired Stromberg-Carlson from The Plessey Company plc. In 1996, the PBX businesses of Mercury Communications, a subsidiary of UK-based Cable & Wireless, were also acquired.

In late 1998, Siemens undertook a major restructuring into four main divisions: power generation, industry, rail systems, and information and communications (ICN). As part of the ICN Division, Siemens Information & Communication Networks (SICN) – later to be commonly known as Siemens Communications (Siemens COM) – became Siemens's biggest business unit. Its focus was on Internet-based network technologies, as it was predicted that global data traffic volume would surpass voice telephony traffic in the early part of the 21st century. In addition, Siemens COM placed greater emphasis on the US market, dominated at the time by Nortel, Lucent, and the emerging Cisco; to that end, the company made two American acquisitions, Castle Networks and Argon Networks, in 1999.

In March 2002, Siemens Communications was divided into two major business units: one for public mobile networks and fixed networks, and the other for enterprise networks.

Siemens Enterprise Communications (2006–2013)

The evolution of Siemens Enterprise Communications began in June 2006, when Siemens divided Siemens COM into two pieces. The carrier networks business was merged with Nokia's Network Business Group to form a joint venture, Nokia Siemens Networks. In October 2006, Siemens Enterprise Communications was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens. From that time, the business focused on unified communications.

In July 2008, Siemens announced a joint venture with American private equity company The Gores Group (headed by Alec Gores), integrating two Gores Group businesses, Enterasys Networks and SER Solutions. Enterasys operated as a subsidiary of Siemens Enterprise Communications until September 2013, when Extreme Networks announced an agreement to purchase Enterasys in an all-cash transaction valued at US$180 million.

Unify (2013–present)

In October 2013, Siemens Enterprise Communications was rebranded to Unify.

Unify is a communications provider that develops, deploys, and manages unified communications, network infrastructure and security and managed and professional services for large enterprises and small and medium enterprises, both directly and via partners.

Its primary product brands are OpenScape (unified communications applications), HiPath (converged enterprise communications) and Circuit (SaaS Team Communication). The company announced OpenScape with Microsoft in 2003. Unify demonstrated SIP and service-oriented architecture with OpenScape. The company's services cover managed services, professional services, and maintenance and support services.

In 2014, Unify launched a SaaS team communication product called Circuit which was previously codenamed Project Ansible. By agreement between the new owner Atos and former owner, from 2016 Circuit was further developed on-the-go and in 2017 launched as a unified communication and collaboration platform for the whole of Siemens.