Siemens restructures Australian VoIP distribution business

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 18 April 2007 13:47

Business IT - Technology

As part of a major overhaul, Siemens Enterprise Networks has shifted from direct sales to a distribution model, appointing IPL Communications as its value added master distributor in Australia for the small to medium business market; and Commander as its partner for the large corporate and government market.

According to the company, the new Australian business model is now being replicated worldwide by Siemens AG to streamline the way it takes its products to market. 

According to general manager for Siemens Enterprise Networks, Mario Vecchio, Siemens' distribution strategy in Australia was not working effectively.

"We have now completely transformed our structure in Australia, appointing IPL Communications as our master value added distributor of Siemens’ best of breed HiPath Voice Servers," said Mr Vecchio. "One of our key selection criteria was to find an organisation that has the skills and experience in VoIP to bring our Open Communications platforms to the market.  IPL has vast experience in this arena and will ensure that our products have the best channels available to reach existing and potential customers. 

"We will continue our long standing relationship with Commander, relying on them to service the large corporate and government customers, leveraging their expertise as solutions architects," continued Mr Vecchio.

For endpoints, such as telephones and Small to Medium systems of less than 1000 users, IPL Communications will import and distribute these products to ex-Siemens Direct Dealers and Commander, as well as developing new reseller partnerships with Siemens’ focused dealers

For large enterprise products including the HiPath 4000 and above (1000+ users) Commander will deal directly with Siemens Enterprise Networks Australasia, which is now part of the global business and not a separate local country subsidiary.

IPL Group CEO Stead Denton said: "We are excited about this new partnership with Siemens Enterprise Networks and believe that its range of open standards systems will complement our existing portfolio of VoIP products and enable us to develop a new team of focused channel partners with one of the world’s strongest brands."

Steve Evans, Group General Manager, Enterprise from reseller partner Commander said: "Commander sees great potential in continuing our long relationship with Siemens Enterprise Networks. We have already started reaping the benefits of cost effective delivery of Siemens SME systems and end-points via IPL Communications. We look forward to working with Siemens on its new breed of Open Communications platforms, such as the HiPath 8000 to deliver convergent communications solutions to our corporate and government customers."