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.

Six-month loss for Mitel

Six-month loss for Mitel

Sales figures dropped 19 percent for the first 6 month of fiscal year for Mitel Networks.

Mitel is working towards an IPO with a value of US$230m. Within the UC space, Mitel has always been hovering around the bottom of the top 10 players in Asia Pacific. Leading the top, are the usual giants of the IPPBX world, namely Cisco, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, and NEC. With the take-over of the Nortel enterprise accounts, Avaya is set to dominate sales performances in 2010. The battle is going to be more intense at the partners level.

Mitel is going Mobile Voice

Mitel is going Mobile Voice

Mitel announced the launch of Mitel Mobile, a wireless voice and data service designed for corporate customers.

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If I get this right, it's an enterprise service which allows the company to issue mobile phones to their employees. These mobile phones will run on the Mitel IP PBX and integrates with their Unified Communications and Collaboration services. If this is true, then it is really a step up the game. For as far as I can tell, I have yet to see another major UC vendor offering mobile services directly. They have always work with third party vendors to achieve services like simultaneous ring, automatic switch over, and picking up your office extension from your mobile. There's a fancy name to it, but I cannot remember what it's call.