VoiceCon Unified Communications eWeekly Issue 127, September 15, 2009

A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies

This issue of UC eWeekly is sponsored by Empirix
SIP Trunking Services provide many benefits for enterprises over current, legacy ISDN trunk lines, including significant cost savings, access to new services, and integration with existing IP based services and business applications.  However, many significant challenges can prevent organizations from realizing the true benefits of SIP Trunks.  Our upcoming webinar will explore the current state of the SIP Trunking market and deployments, the challenges affecting widespread adoption and test methods for mitigating these obstacles. Register now!

Ava-Tel? Nor-Vaya?
The dust may have settled on the auction of Nortel Enterprise, but it’s going to take a while longer for the dust to settle on the deal itself. What’s public so far is the barest of outlines, and as we all know, the devil is in the details.

What’s clear is the price: $900 million, plus another $15 million to create an employee retention pool. What’s not clear is whether anyone who doesn’t already sit inside Nortel’s executive suites can dive into this new pool.

And of course, there’s the issue of the courts. There’s been noise from some quarters that this deal will violate anti-trust guidelines. If you haven’t already done so, check out the coverage of the anti-trust debate on NoJitter.com. Trust me, you’ll learn enough about the Herfindahl Index to last a lifetime. All I can add is that with Microsoft and IBM already in the enterprise communications market and cloud-based approaches led by Google and Skype starting to close in, whatever advantage Cisco and Avaya may enjoy is likely to be short-lived.

The potential legal pitfalls also include rumblings from Verizon, which let it be known that it will try to quash the deal unless the acquiring company makes certain stipulations about servicing and upgrading already-installed systems. Its reason– hang on to your hats here: National security. Turns out that the feds own a lot of Nortel gear, much of it bought via Verizon, which now contends that if that gear can’t be properly upgraded or serviced, national security will go down and terrorist threat levels will go up. Oh, and by the way, Verizon wants to make sure that the feds to don’t make it responsible for upgrading all those systems on its own.

Verizon is just the tip of the distributor iceberg that could determine whether Avaya’s buy succeeds. Nortel arguably had the strongest distribution system among the traditional voice vendors, and although many have either defected or no longer exclusively carry Nortel products, that network is among Nortel’s most potent assets. The extent to which Avaya can retain or re-instill loyalty among those folks will be key to a successful outcome.

From a more narrow UC perspective, a rapid and positive resolution of this deal would be good for the market. As if the economy hasn’t been enough of an obstacle, having Nortel’s fate finally decided removes a major FUD factor. As Marty Parker noted when Avaya’s stalking-horse bid first became public, Nortel has a strong UC portfolio, including the MCS 5100 conferencing system and Diamondware, but it has been unable to overcome the rising tide of doubt about its continued viability (see NoJitter’s blog entry).

And even though its competitors probably won’t agree, the market also will be well served if, over time, Avaya’s acquisition is successful. Given the track record of acquisitions of this size, the odds are not in Avaya’s favor; any way you look at it, integrating these two companies and making decisions about which Nortel products to support going forward, will not be easy or quick. But, if you’re a UC customer, there is a bottom line: It’s better to have more rather than fewer viable competitive suppliers.

Before closing, I want to let you know that beginning next week, we’ll deliver the UC eWeekly e-newsletter in a new format. Since many of you also subscribe to our VoiceCon eNews, we’ve decided to consolidate the two into one weekly, HTML newsletter. The same writers from VoiceCon and UCStrategies.com will continue to share their analysis and perspective, and we’re all grateful for your long-standing support of our efforts.

As always, let me know what you think about the Avaya-Nortel deal or any other topic in enterprise communications by sending me a note at fknight@techweb.com or posting on www.nojitter.com.

Fred Knight
GM/Co-Chair, VoiceCon
Publisher, NoJitter.com

And now for some shameless self-promotion:

Unified Communication Strategies is an industry resource and web portal to help enterprises, vendors and system integrators develop their UC strategies. A source of objective information and thought leadership on Unified Communications, we provide analysis, executive interviews, podcasts, white papers and other information on the UC industry. Visit the UCStrategies.com website for more detail.

Early Registration Savings for VoiceCon San Francisco 2009 Expire September 25, 2009.

Special offer for VoiceCon eNews subscribers: Register now and save up to $900 off the regular price for VoiceCon San Francisco to be held
November 2-5, at the Moscone North Convention Center. 
Register today with VIP Code: CNEFVC04.

Copyright (c) 2009 CMP Media LLC, 999 Oakmont Plaza Dr., Suite 100, Westmont, IL 60559. All Rights Reserved. CMP Media, Business Communications Review, BCR, VoiceCon and associated design marks and logos are trademarks or service marks owned or used under license by CMP Media LLC and may be registered in the United States and other countries. Other names mentioned may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

Posted in Applications, Fred Knight, Implementation, Management, Market Trends, Tech Trends, Unified Communications |

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Trackback from your own site.