Siemens Enterprise Communications and IPL Communication part ways

Enterprise unified communications vendor, Siemens Enterprise Communications, and , IPL Communication have parted company as a result of both parties looking for change.

The contract between the two companies will be terminated as of September 13.

The unified communications distributor has announced plans to shift its company focus from voice to specialise in the video collaboration space, while Siemens Enterprise Communications has inked a new distie deal with CommsPlus Distribution, part of the Plant Industries group of companies.

Siemens Enterprise Communications A/NZ general manager, Edgar Giesel, said its partnership with CommsPlus was a result of having to replace IPL Communications.

“We decided to look for an alternative distributor as we terminated our contract with IPL. We had some issues from the channel with IPL, so CommsPlus will be the new sole but not exclusive distributor for Siemens’ voice and communications products,” Giesel said.

It is not planning on appointing more distributors in the near future.

IPL Communication general manager, Paul Scanlan, said its plan to shift its resourcing to the video space caused the split.

“It’s like most relationships where you come to the point where both parties are no longer passionate about what they are doing and our move to the video space didn’t go unnoticed by the vendor,” Scanlan said.

According to Giesel, the company chose to partner with CommsPlus as it maintained its engagement with its resellers, as well as presented a market share and channel strategy suited for Siemens Enterprise Communications.

The partnership is now effective and aims to drive SMB market growth and grow Siemens Enterprise Communications’ channel base.

As part of the agreement, CommsPlus will be distributing all of Siemens Enterprise Communications’ entire SMB product range, including the OpenScape Office MX/LX V3R3.

“With CommsPlus, we believe we have the right partner to grow our market share. I also liked the fact that it has some of the biggest carriers in Australia as its alliance partners,” Giesel added.

Scanlan said that IPL Communication is moving to the video space as it needs to stay ahead of the market as traditional hardware based telephony sales reduce and video sales accelerate.

He claimed the voice market in Australia had changed dramatically over the last two years, with widespread acceptance of hosting replacing hardware sales at an accelerating rate. Mobility replacing much of traditional telephony was also another reason for its switch in focus.

“We needed to broaden our horizons and looking at the current landscape, we could have gone into the VOIP space but that is well distributed already or Cloud space which the vendors have a lot of control over. So we picked video, which fit in well with the UC story,” Scanlan said.

IPL Communication will be partnering with more vendors within the video space that have a channel focus, which it will be announcing in the coming weeks.

“We are feeling more buoyant than we have felt in the past four years. Over the next three years, we are looking forward to growth rates of 20 or 30 per cent per annum,” he said.

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