Avaya Aura and Nortel ACE

Avaya Aura and Nortel ACE

Avaya has announced it's product road-map around it's UC and CC offerings.

Some of the highlights include:

1. All Avaya UC offerings will be based on Avaya Aura and Nortel ACE.
2. All Avaya CC offerings will be based on Avaya CC and Nortel ICP.
3. Aspect has pointed out the weakness in Avaya's CC roadmap in the areas of Outbound capabilities and Workforce Optimisation.
4. For SME, the Nortel BCM phones and Norstar will converge into the Avaya IP Office product line some time in 2011.
5. For Data, Avaya will adopt Nortel's switches, routers and wireless LAN products.
6. Services line will merge to provide Design, Deploy, Manage and Maintain.

There are tonnes of questions being asked at the session. The Telecom Blog covers the Q&A: http://www.thetelecomblog.com/2010/01/19/questions-from-the-avaya-nortel-integrated-roadmap-presentation/

Key Timelines:

1998 - Nortel bought Bay Networks for $7 billion to expand into routers and switches.
2000 - Nortel spent $16 billion to acquire four more companies, including Alteon Networks.
2001 to 2003 - Nortel lays off 55,000, cutting its workforce to less than half of the 94,500 employed in 2000.
2004 - CEO Frank Dunn and two other executives are fired after an accounting scandal. Bill Owens takes over as CEO, but his tenure lasts only 18 months.
2005 - Nortel names former GE and Motorola exec Mike Zafirovski as its new CEO. Zafirovski cleans up the accounting mess, cuts expenses and restructures the company.
July 2006 - Nortel and Microsoft announced partnership for UC products.
2006 to 2008 - Nortel lays off another 5,300. Company now employs less than 30,000.
14 January 2009 - The company files for bankruptcy.
18 December 2009 - Avaya closed its acquisition of Nortel's enterprise business.
19 January 2010 - Avaya confirmed the integrated product roadmap.