Unify Launches with Mission to Transform Business Communications for the New Way to Work

MUNICH and NEW YORK, Oct. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Built on a successful heritage of nearly 170 years of innovation and formerly known as Siemens Enterprise Communications, a new company was introduced today as Unify, one of the world's leading communications software and services firms. Unify has set out to change the way companies communicate and collaborate, helping them spend less time orchestrating work and more time doing it. The Unify brand and vision were revealed today at events in Munich and New York City and on a live global webcast. A full replay of the relaunch webcast can be found here.

Unify said significant forces were reshaping the communications and IT industries like the consumerization of IT, bring your own device (BYOD), the role of millennials and the impact of "anywhere workers," essentially defining a new way to work (#NW2W). The launch of the new brand builds upon significant momentum and market recognition gained from the company's unveiling of Project Ansible in June 2013. Project Ansible is a new communications and collaboration platform that leverages secure, dynamic collaboration, universal content aggregation, and a consumer-like, single-pane-of-glass experience that drives adoption and seamless integration into business processes to enhance business performance.

"Unify is uniquely positioned to lead our customers and the industry toward the emergence of a new way to work that will transform how enterprises communicate and collaborate, where technology will amplify the collective effort of information workers, energize teams and processes, and enhance business performance," said Hamid Akhavan, CEO, Unify. "Our Siemens history is rich and the connection to our heritage as market innovators remains strong. Our new brand brings to life our vision, backed by dedicated employees around the world, a strong partner community, and an unwavering commitment to help our customers and more than 45 million users find positive returns on their technology investments. Our customers are incredible, our history is enviable, and our future as Unify is unstoppable."

Jacob Morgan, author of The Collaborative Organization and principal of Chess Media Group also commented on the announcement today: "Unify has the vision to address the needs of how we work today. Businesses of all sizes need to make it easier for their global employees and partners to put context to the information and data that flows through organizations while delivering a consumer-like experience anywhere, anytime, and on any device. This new way to work is now a strategic imperative and Unify is taking the leadership position."

Unify's brand launch included a two-hour web-streamed broadcast of original content, hosted by Baratunde Thurston, a well-known social media enthusiast and co-founder and CEO of Cultivated Wit, and Nicole Duft, industry analyst and senior vice president at Pierre-Audoin Consultants (PAC). The agenda featured the unveiling of the new brand and vision in a keynote address by Akhavan; an informative guest line-up of industry analysts and future of work experts: Jacob Morgan, Daniel Schawbel, Ray Wang and Sheila McGee-Smith; and congratulatory messages of support from customers, partners and suppliers like the Pro Football Hall of Fame, IBM, Nycomm, Teradata, Vodafone, T-Systems, ING Bank, SAP and Fujitsu. Akhavan was also joined on the global launch broadcast by Unify's Chief Commercial Officer and President, North America, Chris Hummel, who explained the background and process of creating this vibrant new brand.

The Munich event was held in front of more than 1,000 employees of Unify and guests and was connected to a Unify social media command center in New York City. Unify employees gathered at nearly 60 different offices in 33 countries around the world to view the broadcast and celebrate the company's new brand unveiling.

In addition to in-person events and the global webcast, Unify said it had launched a broad awareness campaign in support of its new brand and vision. The campaign combines online and traditional print advertising across business, trade and industry publications in key markets including: Germany, the United States, Great Britain and Brazil. Unify will be featured prominently next week at one of Brazil's technology expositions – FutureCom, where Akhavan will give a keynote address. Social media discussions regarding the future of work and the Unify launch can be followed at #UnifyNow, #NW2W, #ProjectAnsible and#HarmonizeNow.

Unify Provides Additional Details on Project Ansible
In addition to re-introducing the business as Unify, the company outlined additional details about Project Ansible, a secure and engaging communications and collaboration platform first debuted to wide acclaim from customers and analysts in June 2013. Based on strong interest from customers, partners and carriers, Unify announced that it has accelerated the timeline of  the platform with customer deliveries expected to begin in July 2014.  The platform will be first available as a cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SAAS) offering that would complement OpenScape solutions from Unify, and corporate telephone systems from peer competitors.

Industry Recognition as a Trusted Advisor and for its Solutions
Unify was recently named an "Enterprise Trusted Advisor" by customers and IT professionals according to an annual industry-wide study conducted by Nemertes Research. Unify was ranked third out of an elite list of only 12 companies named as trusted advisors that were selected from the 150 technology companies surveyed, according to Nemertes.

Continually recognized for its strong voice solutions and support of customers, Unify was recently named to the Leaders Quadrant in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Corporate Telephony.  Unify was also recognized as a Leader in the Gartner MarketScape for Unified Communications for the SMB Market, Western Europe.

Unify (then Siemens Enterprise Communications) was formed as a joint venture by The Gores Group and Siemens AG in 2008. The company said today's relaunch under a new brand did not signal a change in the ownership of the company, nor its management structure.

About Unify
Unify—formerly known as Siemens Enterprise Communications—is one of the world's leading communications software and services firms. Our solutions unify multiple networks, devices and applications into one easy-to-use platform that allows teams to engage in rich and meaningful conversations. The result is a transformation of how the enterprise communicates and collaborates that amplifies collective effort, energizes the business, and enhances business performance. Born out of the engineering DNA of Siemens AG, Unify builds on this heritage of product reliability, innovation, open standards and security to provide integrated communications solutions for approximately 75 percent of the Global 500. Unify is a joint venture of The Gores Group and Siemens AG.

This release contains forward-looking statements based on beliefs of Unify's management. The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "forecast," "expect," "intend," "plan," "should," and "project" are used to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the company's current views with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause the actual results to be materially different, including, among others, changes in general economic and business conditions, changes in currency exchange rates and interest rates, introduction of competing products, lack of acceptance of new products or services and changes in business strategy. Actual results may vary materially from those projected here.  Unify does not intend or assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Additional Resources
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/UnifyCo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SiemensEnterpriseCommunicationsGroupOfficial 
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/company/UnifyCo 
Google+: https://plus.google.com/111071689459694265451/posts 
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/UnifyCo 
Unify blog – http://blog.unify.com

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Image with caption: "Unify Logo." Image available at: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20131015/NY97454LOGO

SOURCE Unify