The move toward a more mobile enterprise brings with it the complexity of managing both wired and wireless networks, and Siemens’ Enterprise Communications group this week moved to address that problem by rolling out new telecommunications software with embedded cross-functional network device management and security tools from Sybase Inc.
Siemens’ HiPath MobileConnect V2.3, announced today, is a unified communications product for the enterprise that bundles on one handset multiple communications functions, including voice-over-IP (VoIP), call forwarding, and video calling. While HiPath is a fixed mobile convergence technology for inside the four walls of the enterprise, more and more individuals also carry mobile phones that must be supported by the corporate IT or telecommunications staff. To address this, Siemens has added Sybase’s Afaria device management and security software to HiPath, enabling companies to move all of the functionality of a fixed desktop phone to a mobile phone, thereby eliminating having to manage and sometimes pay for two communications infrastructures, officials said.
Many of today’s mobile devices are built for dual-mode capability, allowing them to operate either on a wireless WAN or a cellular network. With Siemens’ MobileConnect Client software installed on the handset and the MobileConnect Appliance operating on the wired network between the WLAN and the telecommunications private branch exchange (PBX), a phone can seamlessly transition between an internal wireless LAN and the external wireless wide area network, Sybase officials said.
Siemens licenses the Sybase Afaria software and sells the HiPath MobileConnect solution directly to the customer. Sybase has established many “embedded partnerships,” in which the Sybase software works in the background. For example, in an announcement earlier this month, Sybase teamed up with Verizon to add security and applications management to Verizon’s Managed Mobility Solutions service.