While the discussions were covered by a non-disclosure agreement there wasn’t a lot of information that hasn’t already been disclosed in either the product roadmap presentations or other material released by Avaya. With that said there were some technical details on how Avaya plans to integrate the CS1000 with their Aura platform. Unfortunately I can’t really go into the details… especially since a few of the Avaya presenters actually mentioned this blog in my discussions with them. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not? I guess so far so good, and I haven’t yet received any DMCA take down notices.

In any case I thought I would give my opinion on the current state of the Avaya/Nortel marriage. In general I try to avoid posting articles based solely on opinion. I’m much more comfortable basing my discussions on facts and theories that can be proven or dis-proven rather than just subjecture and assumptions. It’s almost expected that in any large acquisition there are bound to be bumps in the road… to date I haven’t seen any as a former Nortel customer. There haven’t been any product supply or support issues and the pricing and discount models  (post Avaya) have remained virtually unchanged. In fact last week we just stood up another CS1000E with 500+ IP phones and 36 Ethernet Routing Switch 5520s with a single Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 at the core at a newly constructed corporate office. So it would appear that it’s definitely business as usual when working with Avaya to procure Nortel hardware and support. Unfortunately not everything has been all roses. I learned last week that Avaya had it’s first round of employee cuts where it eliminated some redundant positions that came about through the Nortel acquisition.

In my opinion it’s seems that Avaya is on the right course and is dedicated to retaining the existing Nortel user base and even growing that user base. The next critical step is in the actual integration of the different product offerings… how will a Nortel CS1000 communicate with the Avaya Aura platform and how will Avaya leverage the existing Nortel investment? Having sat through those presentations last week I’m fairly confident that Avaya won’t let their Nortel customers down.

Let me know what you think?

Has the transition been seamless for you and your organization?

Are you on board with the Nortel/Avaya product roadmap or have you already decided to jump ship? (I think I see a good poll question in that last one)

Cheers!

Aspect is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, March 9th at 11:00AM EST / 8:00AM PST hoping to discuss with current and future potential customers how the integration of the Nortel and Avaya product lines might affect them.

Aspect is a well known provider of large contact center solutions. I hope to personally listen in and see what Aspect has to say. I’d be curious if/how Aspect will also be pushing their Unified Communications solutions.

Cheers!

Here’s the response from Avaya when I questioned them on it;

Were you aware that many Customers could not gain access to your presentation?
Please accept our apologies. Due to unprecedented demand, we experienced technical issues. The replay will be available today at 3:30pm ET, using the same link. You can also view the replay on-demand beginning 9:00am, Thursday, January 21, and will be available on demand for 6 months. It can be accessed using the same URL, user id and password that you received when you registered.

I’m in the process of trying to download the presentation and all the material. I’m hoping that I can sift through all the slides and marketing and get to the real meat, which I can then post here. In short the existing data product roadmap is getting adopted by Avaya – although I believe it’s fair to ask what is/was the data product roadmap? Let’s see it! It was obvious that the voice solutions were going to be the big issue. I heard/read that the CS1000 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon but I only heard about future support for the 1120e and 1140e IP phones, what about the millions of i2002/i2004 IP phones? I also did’t see much about the BCM/SRG other than a comment that it would continue to be manufactured into 2011.

If you’ve seen the keynote and had time to digest the information please go ahead and comment. I will update this post with additional thoughts and comments when I’ve had an opportunity to read through all the material. Hopefully I’ll be able to see the beginning of the keynote presentation today at 3:30PM.

Cheers!

Update: January 19, 2010 3:30PM

Looks like the presentation will now be available at 4:00PM as opposed to the previously announced 3:30PM.

It’s now official – the Nortel/Avaya deal has closed. As of today, Avaya has expanded its portfolio, enlarged its customer base and broadened its global reach…

It would seem the deal is officially done. The words above appeared on the Nortel Enterprise Technology blog yesterday afternoon. I also know that the Nortel sales team responsible for Southern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey were essentially fired by Nortel as of Friday’s close of business. Those that have been offered positions will become Avaya employees on Monday.

With the acquisition complete the clock is now running for Avaya to produce a product roadmap to Nortel/Avaya customers. There’s been a lot of speculation as to which products will make the cut and how Avaya might integrate some of the Nortel products into their portfolio. I won’t add to that speculation other than to say there are a lot of eager Nortel customers waiting on Avaya to release their product roadmap.

You can find the official press release from Avaya here.

Cheers!

Avaya recently released a document that provides some answers although still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The document did make some interesting statements:

Upon closing, Avaya looks to provide continuity for Nortel Enterprise Solutions and Avaya customers. Currently, Avaya expects to:
• continue to ship existing products for approximately 12-18 months post close;
• provide customer support for all customer contracts acquired in the transaction pursuant to their respective terms;
• utilize the vertical and professional services expertise of both companies to drive realizable value and navigate complex architectural evolution;
• honor product life cycle support as set forth in customer contracts acquired in the transaction; and
• adopt, for data products, the Nortel roadmap and investment plan.

So on the surface this document suggests that Avaya will adopt the current data product roadmaps including the research and development. It also promises that existing products will continue to be available for 12-18 months past the predicted December 2009 close of the sale to Avaya. It also promises a detailed roadmap of all products 30 days after the close of the sale.

Let me close out by pointing up to the current poll at the upper right hand corner of this blog. If one thing is certain it’s very clear that Nortel customers are a very loyal group.  Almost 60% of respondents to that poll are willing to give Avaya a shot. I’m also eager to give Avaya a shot and excited to see how they will capitalize on Nortel’s strengths.

What do you think?

Cheers!

References;

Nortel Press Release

While we really won’t know the true outcome until September 11 there are a flurry of stories concerning potential bidders. All About Nortel has a great post detailing the Siemens Gore angle.

Will it be Avaya? Will it be Siemens Gore? Will it be some other unknown party?

Only time will tell.

It certainly seems that Nortel is literally done as all talk of restructuring their debt and emerging from bankruptcy have evaporated and the “everything must go” chant is flying about everywhere.

While it sounds like Nortel’s CDMA business and LTE R&D unit will go to Nokia Siemens pending the completion of the “stalking horse” deal, the jury is still out on Nortel’s Enterprise business although the rumors all point to Avaya as the front runner. If that comes to fruition it will be interesting to see how Avaya plans to transition existing customers away from legacy Nortel products to Avaya products. Or how long they will support the legacy Nortel software and/or equipment before they sunset it.

Is it time to jump ship yet… you might want to check that you have enough lifeboats.

Cheers!

There are all sorts of rumors around the street these days… everything from a sale to a complete divestiture of the company and it’s assets. While it appears that it’s still business as usual at Nortel (product is readily available, new software releases are being released, support is still responsive) you have to wonder what’s going on and what the end game might look like.

I’ve personally had Brocade (Foundry), Cisco, HP, and Juniper in to discuss their enterprise product offers around LAN/WAN routing/switching.  We have quite a few small and large projects that are literally in limbo and I’m not sure how much more uncertainty we (I) as a customer can withstand. I’m curious to what people think today about Nortel?

I’m interested in hearing your comments and/or thoughts?

Cheers!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a media frenzy over any company such as I’ve seen with Nortel. All kidding aside I’ve received no fewer than 25 e-mail messages today from folks outside my organization concerning the Nortel news (I won’t even mention how many messages were flying around internally). At first came the trade magazines with their “newsletters” and then came the vendor/reseller solicitations (as if my Nortel network was about to implode by 12:00PM noon if I didn’t contact them).

Just looking over at Network World I spotted approximately 14 stories related to the Nortel bankruptcy. Is there really that much news that we need 14 stories dedicated to the subject?

The real story here… how is Nortel’s current customer base going to react to the news. Is this the beginning of the end for Nortel or will it be the revitalizing step that Nortel needs to finally come out from under the haze that’s been hanging over it since the dot-com bust in 2001.

I’m sure a few folks have taken notice of the current poll on the left side of this page; What vendor would you use for Enterprise LAN/WAN switching if Nortel disappeared tomorrow?

Where do we as customers go from here… as if there wasn’t enough to-do now we need to tackle the larger question of what’s the risk to my organization if I’m using Nortel equipment and if I’m reliant on Nortel support.

It’s obvious that Cisco is the market leader but how’s does Cisco stand up on price and support compared to Hewlett Packard (HP), Juniper, Foundry, etc. These are all questions quite a few of us are going to be struggling with over the next few weeks and months.

Links of interest include;

http://www.nortel.com/corporate/restructuring.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090114.wnortelstaff0114/BNStory/Technology/home

Cheers!

Update: Thursday January 15, 2008

Now that the inital frenzy is over and the sugar kick has worn off Network World is now reporting “Nortel customers staying the course – for now“.