An Open Letter to Enterasys Customers, Employees, Partners & Prospects
We are delighted to share with you the news that The Gores Group and Siemens, AG have completed their previously announced joint venture transaction in which Gores has acquired a 51 percent stake in Siemens Enterprise Communications. Siemens will maintain a 49 percent ownership interest in the joint venture. The joint venture will combine Siemens Enterprise Communications, Enterasys, and SER Solutions, Inc. Gores and Siemens plan to invest at least €350 million in the joint venture in order to launch innovative new products, acquire other technology platforms, and further drive the expansion of the business. The joint venture begins operations on 1 October 2008 as a multi-billion dollar provider of hardware, software, and services to deliver service-oriented networks that enable voice, video, and data service-oriented applications in a mobile and secure manner.
The newly-created joint venture has also announced the appointment of James R. O’Neill, a 30-year technology industry veteran, as its new chief executive officer. A native of Ireland who became an American citizen in 1976, O’Neill, 54, has extensive international executive management experience with an emphasis on networks and electronics, as well as large system integration, communications and computer technology. He most recently served as CEO of CompuDyne Corporation, a leading provider of products and services to the public security market. CompuDyne is also owned by The Gores Group.
Alec Gores, founder and chairman of The Gores Group, 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 joint venture. Jim O’Neill has led large and complex international organizations with great success; and his ability to connect with customers, employees, and partners in the technology sector is quite impressive.”
The joint venture will attract new customers through standards-based, open-architecture solutions for unified communications that are mobile and secure, while also leveraging Siemens powerful distribution capabilities, global reach, and extensive customer base. Backed by industry leading services and support, the joint venture will innovate communications-enabled business processes that are practical, achievable, and deliver rapid time-to-value. The joint venture will be very solidly financed and entitled to continue using the Siemens brand – one of the Top 50 brands in the world. There are no plans to discontinue the Enterasys product brand.
Enterasys and Siemens Enterprise Communications are an outstanding strategic fit, which accelerates our strategy to create a clear alternative in the enterprise networking and communications industry. Our first steps are to build the business – both organically and through acquisitions. To that end, 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.
Business as Usual
Enterasys will continue to operate in a business as usual manner. Therefore, expect no changes to the engineering, professional services, sales, solution engineering, support, and training resources you work with every day. No changes are anticipated to the development, support, marketing, or selling of particular Enterasys products – in fact, we envision an acceleration and broader awareness of the Enterasys convergence, compliance, and connectivity solutions. We remain committed to investing in research and development to deliver new products. Service, maintenance, and support contract terms remain unchanged. We will keep you informed of any new developments as they occur.
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 Secure Networks and Siemens voice solutions have been integrated with each other for over a decade. Our latest technology collaboration was demonstrated at CeBIT 2008 where Enterasys NAC and the Siemens HiPath real-time IP system showed identity-based and location-based services. Now, through increased scale and brand recognition, Enterasys will be better positioned globally to deliver secure networks that ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of IT services and the business users that rely on them – without sacrificing performance.
Unique Solution
The joint venture 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 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.
Strong Customer Focus
This combination will leverage the core competencies of respected industry leaders to strengthen the technological and financial foundation for delivering tangible customer value faster, better, and more cost-effectively. The combination of Enterasys, SER, and Siemens Enterprise Communications is expected to significantly expand our current market presence and future market opportunity. In alignment with customer needs, analyst recommendations, and industry standards efforts, technology platforms will be strengthened and accelerated providing the financial foundation to appropriately address strategic objectives and explore exciting new opportunities.
Our goal is to help you do your job better and spend less time doing it; and to become your favorite vendor by delivering on our promises – on-time and on-budget. There is nothing more important than our customers as we measure our success based on your satisfaction. We remain the perfect-sized company – big enough to meet your needs now and in the future, yet small enough to have a personal relationship with you.
We can assure you that Enterasys will continue to earn the right to your business. We will compete fairly on value, technology, domain expertise, and customer support to maintain the honesty, integrity, and respect that you would expect of a world-class company. Ultimately, the driver in all of our decisions will be the needs of our customers. We will provide the best solution for each unique organization to derive maximum advantage from effectively integrated communications - respecting both your current technology environment and future IT strategy.
Partnerships are Critical to Our Success
Channel partners are an extended part of our family. You are integral to our near-term progress and long-term growth. Our 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 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 joint venture services unit will continue the current relationships with Cisco, HP ProCurve, and other data vendors to service current and future needs of managed outsourcing contracts and systems integration engagements. The joint venture data unit will continue to certify interoperability with voice and UC solutions beyond those from Siemens Enterprise Communications. We will continue to support all OEM agreements.
No Need to Wait
Enterasys and Siemens already co-exist in many customer environments. We expect customers will be able to extend their existing investment in one to the other. While we will explore 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 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 continued loyalty and support during these times of change at Enterasys. Our passion is to build companies that last – with this in mind, we are focused on helping the new joint venture 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