I had a chance to chat with Mark Straton of Siemens late last week, and he described something that Siemens has dubbed "O2", for "Obama Opportunities"--the sort of electronic-infrastructure projects that Siemens folks believe may come to fruition as part of an economic stimulus program.Mark said with local school districts, public safety and transit agencies being the main types of categories. Command and control systems are likely candidates for modernization under an Obama infrastructure program, he said.
Mark pointed to a win that Siemens has already captured in this market space, the Applied Science Center of Innovation and Excellence in Homeland Security, a Long Island-based technology center that will house some 20 tech companies, similar to the notion of an incubator project, though this particular facility will house established companies rather than startups, which Siemens describes as follows:
The purpose of the Applied Science Center of Innovation and Excellence in Homeland Security is to focus and accelerate the transfer of technology and ideas into market driven products and systems used to solve key problems in protecting against a terrorist event, while creating jobs in New York State. The Center is creating an environment for innovation by facilitating the convergence of research and technology in the public and private sectors of NY State on issues facing US and NY State Homeland Security.
Siemens is providing the center with "OpenScape Voice, OpenScape UC Application, OpenScape Xpressions, Command and Control, Data Infrastructure, DirX Identity Management and SBT's SiPass--a smart card-based physical security solution. Siemens Enterprise Communications will also be one of the 20 companies located in the Center."
Mark said Siemens gained another edge in winning government business when it hired James O'Neill as its CEO last October. O'Neill has long experience in the government divisions of major companies, including stints as president of Northrop Grumman Corporation's $4.5 billion Information Technology sector, and in Lucent Technologies' Government Solutions business unit.
While there may be a voice element to some of these "O2" projects, Mark said that mobility is likely to be an equally strong driver.
"Wireless LANs are a core business for us, and now with Enterasys, the infrastructure technology to support broadband and wireless are really key things," Straton said.
Mark said Siemens also is likely to bet heavily on technologies that enable the remote worker, as part of Obama's goal of employing greener technologies. The other green aspect that Siemens has been pursuing is centralizing voice infrastructure in one or two datacenters, replacing highly distributed, older generation PBXs that could use more power.
