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Siemens Enterprise Communications Partners with Digium(R) to Deliver Integrated, Open IP Communications Solution for German Insurance Group

Posted on: Tuesday, 3 November 2009, 08:00 CST

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. and MUNICH, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Digium®, creator and primary developer of Asterisk®, the most widely adopted and flexible open source telephony platform, and Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group), a premier provider of enterprise communications solutions, today announced that the two companies have entered into a partnership agreement that will allow organizations to tightly integrate enterprise needs with the SMB flexibility of open source in one communications ecosystem. This will give organizations the benefits of Asterisk along with SEN Group's Open Communications approach and award-winning product portfolio which includes Enterasys networking, OpenScape Voice and unified communications (UC), and OpenStage Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phones.

The two companies partnered to create a tailored solution for LVM Landwirtschaftlicher Versicherungsverein Munster a.G. (LVM), a large German insurance group that wanted to give its agents, local SMBs, a solution that could fit their unique needs, while tightly integrating with the company's corporate SEN Group telephony system. LVM is one of Germany's largest direct insurance groups with over three million customers across the country serviced by a network of 2,100 local agents. The company understands that it is the local presence that allows them to provide great service. LVM constantly looks for ways to leverage advanced technologies and to give its agents the tools they need to provide an optimal service experience. As an open source pioneer with considerable application integration experience, the company looked at systems and devices that could support open communication. The LVM project is being deployed through Datus AG, a Digium Select Partner with nearly four decades of experience designing and implementing communications networks in Germany.

"We understand the value of IT and that your IP phone system is not just another application running on the network, it is the backbone of your business," said Werner Schmidt, CIO of LVM. "We are also an organization that has been using open source for almost ten years and have a lot of internal expertise in developing applications on open platforms, which is why we looked for a system and devices that could support a tailored open source solution, connecting our agents from the phone to the datacenter."

LVM ultimately decided to extend its existing SEN Group system with the open architecture of the Enterasys network infrastructure, including N-Series and C-Series switches, as well as the Network Management Suite (NMS), ensuring that voice traffic is prioritized and secure. Then, working with Datus AG and Digium, LVM decided to combine Asterisk onto the Datus indali appliance with Digium telephony interface cards and connected it with the SEN Group's OpenStage 60 phones for the agent offices.

Said Danny Windham, CEO of Digium, "Organizations worldwide are benefiting from the flexibility, low cost and extensibility of open source telephony. We're fortunate to be partnering with SEN Group and working with integration partners such as Datus to bring advanced communication technologies to market and we're pleased that LVM saw the value in this type of solution."

True to its name, the OpenStage family of phones is open, based on industry standards that allow them to be integrated with third-party business applications via technologies such as XML. They can be integrated with corporate LDAP directories, custom phone books, and even provide web access to public phone books. In addition, the phones offer BlueTooth technology that can synchronize phone books with mobile phones. For organizations that want to create their own custom applications, software developer kits (SDKs) are available to further tailor the phone to business needs. The OpenStage family of phones from the SEN Group offers sleek designs, superior sound quality with High Definition (HD) voice and audio conferencing and intuitive, user-friendly menus that provide easy access to the most used features on the phone such as push-to-conference, desktop call management, and presence-based calling.

SEN Group and Digium share a commitment to providing customers with standards- and software-based business communications solutions. This premise can provide companies with a way to expand their options while mitigating risk and maintaining a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), when deploying UC. They also allow organizations like LVM to integrate the desktop device with their chosen IP ecosystem, connecting corporate with their network of agents. In addition, the partnership provides Asterisk dealers and developers with access to the OpenStage product lines which offer a wide variety of new SIP and DECT SIP telephones to meet customer needs.

"Our work with Digium and LVM is a true testament to our Open Communications approach, allowing us to integrate our products into any environment, including open source," said Eve Aretakis, executive vice president voice solutions and applications at SEN Group. "Not only are OpenStage phones designed to help organizations improve productivity and streamline workflows, they can integrate popular open source software solutions, such as those based on Asterisk into the most-used office tool, the telephone itself. From data to the device, working with Digium, we have ensured that LVM has the security and flexibility to unify their chosen ecosystem."

About LVM

Insurance consultancy with focus on each individual's needs - that's the principle of LVM Versicherungen, situated in Muenster, Germany. The personal support close-by bases on the company's more than 112-year-long tradition. All developments cater the customers' requirements and demands.

With 3 million customers, LVM obtained about 2.3 billion Euro contribution in 2008. Its 11.6 billion Euro capital investments represent the solid and trustworthy corporate management. 2,850 employees work at the headquarters in Muenster. Its dense network of more than 2,150 self-employed sales representatives makes the LVM visible throughout Germany. Today, LVM perceives itself as a modern financial service provider. The company belongs to the 20 biggest insurance companies in Germany. Recurring awards of acknowledged rating agencies (ASSEKURATA, Stiftung Warentest et. al) underline that LVM is a traditional, service- and customer-oriented company with a bright future ahead.

About Digium

Digium®, Inc., the Asterisk® Company, created, owns and is the innovative force behind Asterisk, the most widely used open source telephony software. Since its founding in 1999, Digium has become the open source alternative to proprietary communication providers, with offerings that cost as much as 80 percent less. Digium offers Asterisk software free to the open source community and offers Asterisk Business Edition and Switchvox IP PBX software to power a broad family of products for small, medium and large businesses. The company's product line includes a wide range of hardware and software to enable resellers and customers to implement turnkey VoIP systems or to design their own custom telephony solutions. More information is available at http://www.digium.com.

About Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group)

The SEN Group is a premier provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, including voice, network infrastructure and security solutions that use open, standards-based architectures to unify communications and business applications for a seamless collaboration experience. This award-winning "Open Communications" approach enables organizations to improve productivity and reduce costs through easy-to-deploy solutions that work within existing IT environments, delivering operational efficiencies. It is the foundation for the company's OpenPath® commitment that enables customers to mitigate risk and cost-effectively adopt unified communications. Jointly owned by The Gores Group and Siemens AG, SEN Group companies include Siemens Enterprise Communications, Cycos, and Enterasys Networks.

For more information about the SEN Group or Enterasys please visit www.siemens-enterprise.com or www.enterasys.com

Note: Siemens Enterprise Communications & Co K.G. is a trademark licensee of Siemens AG. HiPath, OpenOffice, OpenScape and OpenStage, are registered trademarks of Siemens Enterprise Communications & Co K.G. or its affiliates. All other company, brand, product and service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

This release contains forward-looking statements based on beliefs of Siemens' management. The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "forecast," "expect," "intend," "plan," "should," and "project" are used to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the company's current views with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause the actual results to be materially different, including, among others, changes in general economic and business conditions, changes in currency exchange rates and interest rates, introduction of competing products, lack of acceptance of new products or services and changes in business strategy. Actual results may vary materially from those projected here. Siemens does not intend or assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Siemens Enterprise Communications Group

Source: PR Newswire

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