Siemens stays mum on telephone business

German electronics giant Siemens is staying quiet about its long-term plans for telecoms equipment manufacturing, as rivals Alcatel and Lucent Technologies near an agreement on merging.

“We’re seeing big changes in telecommunications; it’s a dynamic market,” Siemens spokesman Wolfram Trost said Friday. “There are many rumors about our plans. All I can say is that we view ourselves as well positioned in this market.”

Some of Siemens’ recent moves, however, suggest that the company could be preparing for either a substantial downsizing of its telecoms business, a merger, or even possibly a spin off.

Last week it agreed to transfer its research and development for TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) switching and next-generation networks to TietoEnator, in Helsinki, Finland.

Of Siemens’ total €5 billion ($6 billion) R&D budget, roughly one-third goes to its Com division, responsible for information and communication technologies, Trost said.

He was unable to say exactly how much of that one-third was accounted for by the operations transferred to the Finns.

Last year, Siemens paid Taiwan’s BenQ to take over its mobile phone manufacturing business.

Also last year, the Munich manufacturer spun off its manufacturing operations for cordless phones, Internet telephone devices and home entertainment systems into Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices.

In 2003, Siemens abandoned the network manufacturing business when it sold its network subsidiary Unisphere to Juniper Networks. The German company currently resell routers and switches from China’s Huawei Technologies.

Over the past two years, the company has been aggressively restructuring the Com division, axing thousands of jobs along the way.

Eduardo Montes, who formerly headed Siemens’ operations in Spain, was appointed head of the Com division last week. His mission is being kept secret.