An Open Letter to Enterasys Customers, Employees, Partners & Prospects
Enterasys Networks, Siemens Enterprise Communications, and SER Solutions, Inc. have merged to form a market-leading provider of enterprise communications solutions. Major investors in this new private company include The Gores Group and Siemens, AG. The new company began operations on 1 October 2008 as a multi-billion dollar provider of hardware, software, and services to deliver communication systems and networks that enable service-oriented voice, video, and data applications in a mobile and secure manner.
The company is led by Chairman of the Board and CEO Mark Stone. Stone has responsibility for Gores’ worldwide operations, as well as oversight of all Gores portfolio companies and its operational due diligence efforts. Alec Gores, founder and chairman of The Gores Group, and leading investor in this new company stated, “We are very excited about the addition of Siemens Enterprise Communications to our portfolio of companies. We think that Siemens Enterprise Communications will help expand our presence in the enterprise networking and communications space and we look forward to rapidly growing the new company.”
The company offers leading standards-based, open-architecture solutions for unified communications that are mobile and secure, and leverages Siemens Enterprise Communications’ powerful distribution capabilities, global reach, and extensive customer base. Backed by industry-leading services and support, the company delivers customer-focused solutions with rapid time-to-value.
Enterasys Networks and Siemens Enterprise Communications are an outstanding strategic fit and create a clear and strong alternative in the enterprise networking and communications industry. Gores will continue to aggressively pursue acquisitions to add additional technologies to the portfolio of products and services to further drive the expansion of the business and capitalize on the powerful Siemens Enterprise Communications global presence.
Complementary Technology
We are a big believer in open communications solutions that integrate with what you already own to optimize, enhance, and transform your voice, video, and data communications to be unified, mobile, and secure while protecting existing financial and knowledge investments. Standards-based networking promotes competition and innovation and provides customers with a choice of solutions. Multiple suppliers diversify risks and result in lower costs and better technology. A dual-sourcing strategy for your communications investments avoids vendor lock-in strategies, forklift upgrades, and pricing premiums. Unique is our commitment to open-architecture, standards-based technology that integrates with existing customer environments, aligns networks with business priorities, and delivers long useful technology lifecycles.
Enterasys Networks and Siemens Enterprise Communications voice solutions have been integrated with each other for over a decade. With the formation of the new combined company, those integrations are being expanded and extended, and continue to deliver benefits such as cost reduction, improved end-user experience, and reduced administrative overhead. For example, an automated location, configuration, and inventory management solution significantly reduces administrative costs for VoIP deployments. The company has also continued to aggressively integrate wired and wireless network management capabilities, as first announced in November 2008, to help customers drive down costs and improve overall operational efficiency.
Unique Solution
The new company opens a new chapter in Enterasys’ 25-year history. The thought leadership and innovation of our employees will remain focused on the intelligence, automation, and integration of our technology to automatically prioritize and secure users and applications through identity-based, service-oriented networking hardware and security software. We will continue to create customer loyalty through our people, process, and technology to align the network with business objectives, drive operational efficiency, and deliver industry-leading security and support. Today, products from both Enterasys and Siemens Enterprise Communications are cross-platform, include a wide range of open interfaces, and are based on industry standards. These characteristics facilitate compatibility and interoperability with a far-reaching range of software/hardware and, as such, will support your need to mix and match different vendor products into a comprehensive solution that meets your specific requirements.
A specialty of Enterasys networking technology is deep and granular visibility and control over network traffic. Customers leverage these capabilities to ensure that business-critical applications and services have the quality of service and bandwidth they require, and to ensure that business requirements for overall security and identity-based access controls are properly configured and enforced. These unified-communications-optimized capabilities will continue to be enhanced so customers can ensure the reliability needs of those applications are met as they expand and evolve. These capabilities will be critical to effective UC deployments and we are excited about the possibilities offered.
Partnerships are Critical to Our Success
Channel partners are an extended part of our family and critical to our future success. You are integral to our near-term progress and long-term growth. Our mutual success relies upon your satisfaction. Our goal is to leverage the unique capabilities and skill sets of our partners around the world to ensure the highest levels of quality interaction with our joint customers.
We will continue to honor and strengthen existing technology partnerships, such as those with Genesys in the field of CRM, and Microsoft, IBM, and Salesforce.com in the field of Unified Communications. The new company will continue to certify interoperability with voice and UC solutions beyond those from Siemens Enterprise Communications. We will continue to support all OEM agreements.
Available Today
Enterasys and Siemens Enterprise Communications already co-exist in many customer environments. We expect customers will be able to extend their existing investment in one to the other. As we continue to develop synergistic opportunities to build a more powerful joint solution set - it is also an important reminder that each product is well respected for its individual voice, video, data, mobility, security, and customer interaction center capabilities. Enterasys and Siemens Enterprise Communications are committed to preserving the financial and knowledge investments you have made in our solutions.
We would like to extend a personal thank you for your ongoing input and continued loyalty. Our passion is to build companies that last – with this in mind, we are focused on helping the new company be the best communications company in the world. The quality of the relationships with our customers will be our indicator of success. We look forward to working with you for the future benefit of all our organizations.
If you have any further questions or concerns we encourage you to contact Enterasys at 877-801-7082 for North America, +55 11 3525 4600 for Latin America, +65 632 99733 for APAC, and +49 (0) 69 47 8600 for EMEA. Please also feel free to contact us directly at +1 978 684 1199.
Sincerely,
The Enterasys Management Team