"It is good to see that a company as large as Siemens can adapt to changes quickly," he said.

Usumi said the fraud investigation probably won't influence his future decisions about whether to buy from Siemens. But a possible sale of the Siemens business unit "might" influence him.

A Siemens spokeswoman, Monika Brucklmeier, confirmed last month that talks are continuing with several interested groups to sell the company's unprofitable Siemens Enterprise Networks subsidiary. The unit employs 17,000 people in 80 countries and is called Siemens Communications Inc. in the U.S. Jacob Rice, a spokesman for Siemens Communications, said the process for determining what happens to the unit is "open-ended" and could result in creation of a partnership where Siemens has a minority interest.

No one at Siemens would confirm reports that talks had collapsed with two buyout companies. But Freedman and other analysts said those reports cast a negative light on sale prospects.

"They're not inspiring much confidence," she said, adding that IT managers should weigh what might happen to any company they are considering purchasing from. "IT wants to extend the life of a network as long as possible, but with Siemens Enterprise Communications relatively unstable, how do you guarantee it will be Siemens Enterprise for three or six months?"