Avaya's New Android Tablet

Avaya's New Android Tablet

Avaya announced it's new Android-based tablet device for business.

Cisco's version of iPad for business, Cius, is going for around $1,000. Avaya's device, and the software Flare, costs $2,000+. My iPad, $750. No doubt my iPad is not optimised for Video, Voice and Web conferencing. It'd be great to see one of these in action. I shall reserve judgement until my next visit to their demo centers.

The design of these devices are obviously based off the popularity of the iPad. I'm already using my iPad for many things. Doddling, DJing (yes!), taking meeting notes, trying to maintain a GTD system, games, and of course, reading news, and magazines. I've even tried (sucessfully) making a phone call with it! The experience of video over 3G was however, horrible. Even with a WiFi connection, I find the resolution-to-speed performance undesirable.

Assuming these two giants really pulled it off and optimised the device for Voice, Video, and Web conferencing, whilst integrating their existing UC suites of solutions, there's still this question: What is these devices looking to displace? The $200 IP Phone? Or the $2000 personal video confc? Spending $1,000 to buy a personal "toy" is one thing. How many companies can justify it's company expenses on these devices?

Mitel IPO

Mitel IPO

Mitel went public last week.

In the midst of my hectic month-closing, I missed this big news. How could I miss this big news? Mitel closed at $14 per share, below the expected $18 per share, raising close to $150m.

I've spoken with a couple of Mitel people over the past year. Their presence in Singapore isn't really that strong. Most of their APAC activities come out of Australia and Hong Kong.

With this IPO, Mitel joins ShoreTel and Interactive Intelligence as the only pure-play UC public companies.

This IPO definitely caught my attention, not just for Mitel, but Avaya as well. Avaya went private in 2007 when it was bought out by private equity firms TPG Capital and Silver Lake. Earlier this year, it completed is acquisition of Nortel. An Avaya IPO could be around the corner.

Cisco and 2 Telepresence Solutions

Cisco and 2 Telepresence Solutions

With acquisition of Tandberg by Cisco, there appears to be overlap of their telepresence portfolio.

The $3.4b acquisition is expected to wrap up sometime in H1 of 2010. At the product-level, this acquisition will see a fuller video conferencing portfolio from Cisco. While Cisco previously cover the lower-end video conference, Webex and the highest end board-room style telepresence, Tandberg's product line complements Cisco missing mid-range offerings. However, Tandberg has its own telepresence products. How will these 2 telepresence products integrate? Or will one of them be dropped off completely?

At the partners level, Tandberg's partners may or may not wait for official news. Some may react to this by switching over to Polycom. Just as the recent Avaya-Nortel acquisition sees partners switching sides, it is inevitable that some Tandberg's partners will switch to Polycom.

At the industry level, this suddenly leaves Polycom a very attractive choice. With an impending IPO coming up, will Avaya consider buying Polycom?

Avaya IPO?

Avaya IPO?

Todd Abbott, SVP of global sales and marketing for Avaya has been reported to say that Avaya may be open to an IPO in the next few years.

Avaya was bought out by private equity firms TPG Capital and Silver Lake in 2007. The recent acquisition of Nortel enterprise is one of the key strategy affecting the IPO. Avaya and Nortel had been big players in terms of market share. In Asia Pacific, they are amongst the top 3 or 4 players in the UC and IPPBX space. Acquisition of Nortel may not necessarily lead to 100% conversion of existing Nortel base as all the other players have been chewing on the Nortel pie. Avaya had just recently announced the roadmap for the Avaya-Nortel integration. The upcoming 6 to 12 months would be critical in determining how much of Nortel's base is Avaya able to retain. Market share aside, Avaya really has to look at other acquisitions to help booast it's next-gen portfolio of products.

Avaya terminating it's R&D team in Sydney, Australia

Avaya terminating it's R&D team in Sydney, Australia

There is rumor that Avaya is terminating it's research and development team in Sydney, Australia. At the same time, there is report of Avaya denying this rumor.

Avaya Labs main function is to support development of products and services globally. It has presence in the US, the United Kingdom, Australia, Israel, Germany, Japan, India, Canada and Singapore.


 

John DiLullo appointed Vice President, Americas International Region for Avaya

John DiLullo appointed Vice President, Americas International Region for Avaya

Avaya Appoints John DiLullo Vice President, Americas International Region to look after Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America.

John was previously based in Singapore where he led Avaya's Asia Pacific region. Francois Lancon had taken over that role. Both John and Francois reports to Todd Abbott, Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing & President, Field Operations.

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.

Francois heads Avaya Asia Pacific

Francois heads Avaya Asia Pacific

Francois Lancon replaces John DiLullo in Avaya Asia Pacific.

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Avaya bought Nortel. But it seems like it's Nortel's taking over Avaya. Francois is previously President Enterprise for EMEA and Asia. He is now President for Avaya Asia Pacific. Crossing over to Avaya from Nortel, are Rick Seeto and Chong-Win Lee. Rick is previously CMO for Nortel Asia. He is now Director of Solution Marketing Vice President of Marketing and Solutions. Chong-Win is prevously GM for Contact Center and UC Solutions for Nortel Asia, Middle East and Africa. He is now Director for Contact Center Solutions in APAC. They are all based in Singapore. John had transferred to lead Avaya Canada and Latin America.

Avaya-Nortel product roadmap

Avaya-Nortel product roadmap

Even as internal restructuring is going on globally, Avaya will be revealing its post-acquisition product roadmap.

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While there will be a lot of press releases and media coverage, I seriously doubt it is going to have immediate impact on the industry. This is because the first announcement will be to their channels. There will be a big lag between training to go-to-market. This lag can take several months to even a year as the process involves lots of human interactions which can create hard bottlenecks. Lags can come from things like channel account distributions, minimum margins, commission structures, positioning message, ROI calculations, marketing materials, white papers, sales documents. I for one know it is difficult to get a seasoned sales person to change his sales pitch. I highly doubt product roadmap is a sexy topic. Taking this back to the first sentence I wrote, the top concerns on most people's mind right now is who's going to stay in the new Avaya and who's leaving.