Sticking with Siemens: PosTrack Technologies
This week Siemens Enterprise Networks held their annual Global Analyst Meeting in Vienna, Austria. Sixty-plus analysts are spending two days hearing product, marketing, and services updates liberally dosed with presentations from Siemens customers and channel partners. While many of these outside speakers understandably hail from Siemens stronghold in Europe, one US customer made the long trip from the Chicago area to Vienna.
The story of 25-year old PosTrack Technologies starts with the name of the firm –PosTrack offers data aggregation of point of sale operations for the food service and retail services markets. Several years ago, PosTrack began a second business with the creation of a Telecom division, selling carrier services to their established customer base, especially education institutions.
Eric Krapf aptly reviewed PosTrack’s telecom offerings a couple of months ago. Based on the presentation by Tony Brncich, PosTrack’s Senior Vice President for Telecom, I’ll provide an update on one of those services, what Eric referred to as Mobility.
PosTrack announced in March 2008 plans to offer a hosted FMC service targeted primarily at the higher education market based on Siemens OpenScape Mobiity solution. Branded PosTrack Mobile, it allows dual-band mobile phones to make calls over Wi-Fi when that type of signal is available, or with virtually any cellular carrier signal if Wi-Fi is not. While some solutions require manual switching between networks, PosTrack’s offer seamlessly transfers between the two.
PosTrack Mobile calls made over Wi-Fi do not use cell phone minutes; instead, they take place over the same SIP trunks that power PosTrack’s IP Centrex phone systems. As a result, PosTrack Mobile phones include intercom dialing and other features typically only found in large PBX systems.
The value proposition for colleges and universities that having steadily been losing telecom revenue is evident from the traction the solution has gained in a relatively short time. Tony Brncich, PosTrack’s Senior Vice President announced that Michigan Tech started a pilot this month and another 15 pilots will begin in July 2008 in higher-education environments.
In the context of that kind of quick success, it’s not surprising that PosTrack has decided to not only stick with Siemens but continue to build new solutions based on Siemens technology.
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