This Giant can ‘Dance’

Long considered
to be a traditional telecom company manufacturing telephone and
infrastructure equipment, Siemens is now gearing itself to be a
world leader in mobile communications—‘which is what
the future is’. It is therefore not surprising to see that
Siemens is projecting itself as a company that covers all
components of mobile business—the Internet, mobile
communications and electronic business.

IP is the name of the game

The company has restructured itself into
three Information and Communication (I and C)
groups—Information and Communication Networks (ICN),
Information and Communication Mobile (ICM) and Siemens Business
Services (SBS). "The objective is to provide virtually
seamless mobility for everyone, in both business and private
spheres," says Roland Koch, AG Managing Board Member and
President, ICN group, Siemens.

In this
direction, ICN is pushing its strategic focus on IP-based
convergence solutions and broadband access technology in the area
of mobile devices, mobile network infrastructure and mobile
applications. ICN provides integrated voice and data networks for
enterprises, carriers and service providers. Its portfolio
comprises of IP-based convergence solutions, products for
broadband access, optical transport networks and network
integration. The group aims at ranking among the top three in the
world market. The focus is on IP convergence solutions for
carriers and enterprises, which make possible an IP-based
integration of voice, data and video; and on broadband access
technologies for extremely fast Internet access. “Our
priority is to duplicate the quality and reliability of today's
telephone networks in the IP world and thus help build up the
Next Generation Internet highway,” adds Koch.

A further step towards this goal is to
provide high-speed Internet access to end-users. Siemens claims
that it will increase its production of DSL lines
twentyfold—to 2.5 million units in 2001.

Success seems to be knocking at Siemens
doors. The company recently signed major contracts with Swisscom
for convergence solutions and with COLT for Voice over DSL. They
also claim to have bagged 76 orders in 30 countries, from network
operators. Last year, the ICN group did sales worth EUR 11.4
billion.

Beyond Borders

The ICM group at
Siemens offers a range of mobile solutions including mobile
devices, infrastructure equipment and applications. Applications
include UMTS services, such as unified messaging, location-based
services and mobile payment.

The company,
whose revenues primarily came from Europe and Germany, now plans
to move aggressively into global markets such as the US, South
America and Asia. In particular, in the US, the company wants to
spread the GSM standard, where it currently has only a niche
position. In Europe, the strategy will be business with Universal
Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) network technology.
According to Rudi Lamprecht, Managing Board Member and President,
ICM group, Siemens. “Siemens has already signed agreements
with 11 of 33 mobile network operators in Europe, and is
currently ranked Number 2 among UMTS network providers.”

Ibrahim Ahmad 

Source:
www.voicendata.com