Avaya Acquires Radvision for $230 Million
After months of rumors, Avaya today confirmed that it plans to acquire Radvision, an Israeli firm that provides videoconferencing and telepresence technologies over IP and wireless networks, for $230 million.
Through this acquisition, Avaya will provide customers a highly integrated and interoperable suite of high-definition video collaboration products, with the ability to plug and play multiple mobile devices, including Apple iPad and Google Android.
Upon closing, Radvision's enterprise video infrastructure and high-value endpoints will be integrated with Avaya's Aura unified communications (UC) platform. The Radvision portfolio includes standards-based applications, open infrastructure and endpoints for ad-hoc and scheduled videoconferencing with room-based systems, desktop and mobile consumer devices. The integrated Avaya and Radvision portfolios will extend intra-company business-to-business and business-to-customer video communications, and also supports internal bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives.
Radvision's Scopia Video product line and expertise, integrated with the open architecture of Avaya Aura, is expected to bridge existing H.323 communications networks and SIP-based environments, delivering scalability and a user experience designed to be intuitive and easy to operate.
That is exactly what businesses today want, according to Kevin Kennedy, president and CEO of Avaya. "With this acquisition we will seek to extend videoconferencing to any device, anytime, anywhere, making it as easy as a phone call, seizing the opportunity to deliver a fully-integrated solution and architecture that we believe sets us apart from the competition," he said in a statement.
"Radvision has a strong heritage of developing and delivering innovative videoconferencing products and technologies deployed by Fortune 500 companies and global service providers," said Boaz Raviv, CEO of Radvision, in a statement. "As companies and their customers seek to deploy a wide range of video capabilities as part of their daily collaboration, the combination of Avaya's and Radvision's portfolio will provide flexible and easy-to-use solutions. Avaya's commitment to quality, innovation, open architectures and industry standards is an ideal fit to advance Radvision's vision for making video part of everyday life."
And analysts are already cheering the merger of the two technologies. "The addition of the Radvision video portfolio to Avaya's business collaboration solutions is a powerful combination. Radvison's video management capabilities, video bridging solutions, and video endpoint portfolio complement the Avaya Aura unified communications platform. This is a win for both of these companies, their channel partners, and their end-user customers," said Ira Weinstein, senior analyst and partner at Wainhouse Research, in a statement.