Avaya Completes Nortel Acquisition
Avaya officially completed its Nortel Enterprise Solutions (NES) acquisition on Friday, Dec. 18.
"The completion of this acquisition represents another major step in Avaya's evolution and growth in the communications industry," said Kevin J. Kennedy, president and CEO of Avaya, in a statement. "Avaya and Nortel Enterprise Solutions share a common vision for the future of business communications. By combining our complementary technology portfolios, deep industry-specific domain expertise, sales channels, and customer bases, the new Avaya will redefine business communications and help customers to reduce costs, simplify operations, and increase their business agility."
As a result of the acquisition, Avaya will benefit from an expanded partner ecosystem, a broader portfolio, an enhanced customer base, and a greater ability to compete globally. The company also will extend relationships with system integrators and service providers who serve the enterprise market.
Approximately 6,000 NES employees have joined Avaya, including 25 top managers. Joel Hackney, previously president of Nortel Enterprise Solutions, joins the Avaya Executive Committee as senior vice president and president, Avaya Government Solutions and Data.
"In addition to great technology and outstanding customer relationships, NES brings talented employees in sales, systems engineering, services, marketing, and more," Kennedy said. "We believe our ability to innovate and develop solutions for customers to help them transform their businesses will continue to accelerate."
The company expects to provide information about the new combined product portfolio and roadmap within the next 30 days, but some analysts are already speculating about the future of the company. Steve Hilton, principle analyst for enterprise solutions at Analysys Mason, expects consolidation of the Avaya and Nortel IP phone systems. “We see no reason for Avaya to continue both solution sets in the medium-term,” he wrote in an email.
Among his other predictions, Hilton says to expect pricing aggressiveness from channel partners selling to enterprises and small enterprises. “Avaya is going to lavish attention on its channel partners to prevent other vendors, like NEC, Toshiba, Panasonic, Cisco, and others, from picking them off. Enterprises will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this little post-holiday gift,” he wrote, noting that 89 percent of Nortel's go-to-market approach is through channel partners, whereas only 57 percent of Avaya's is indirect.
He also says to expect better functioning of Avaya products over NES networking gear, and maybe networking gear irrespective of vendor. Voice over Internet Protocols, unified communications, video-based communications, and cloud-based computing “all hinges on tight integration of technology products across a well-engineered and configured LAN and WAN. Avaya is going to learn a lot from the NES networking teams,” Hilton concludes.