On Wednesday morning here at VoiceCon, Siemens and IBM announced a new OEM agreement that lets IBM license Siemens’ unified communications (UC) application, OpenScape. IBM plans to use OpenScape to improve upon its own Lotus UC offering, called Unified Telephony. 

After the announcement, I sat down with Andy Chew, Siemens senior VP for unified communications, and James Lawton, Siemens VP of strategic system integration. We talked a little about the IBM OEM, but what interested me more were their thoughts on the state of the UC market and Siemens’ approach to SMBs. 

Chew, who’s based in the U.K., told me that he thinks the UC market is still “immature,” but that migrating to UC should nonetheless be a priority for SMBs. In addition to improving communication capabilities and lowering costs, SMBs can adopt UC with little risk if they opt for the hosted services or SaaS route, he said. 

Siemens currently offers hosted versions of its UC offerings, which SMBs can purchase on a monthly basis. If a customer decides Siemens’ OpenScape is not for them, for example, it can simply drop it without having to worry about breaking any long-term contract. 

As for security, Lawton assured me that at Siemens “security is at the base of everything.” While I can’t verify that independently (at least not from the floor of VoiceCon), it’s encouraging at least that a major UC vendor like Siemens seems to recognize the importance of security, especially for SMBs that might not have the resources to withstand a devastating cyberattack.  

Security, Lawton said, “is a mantra for us.” Amen to that.