Any AVAYA business partners should be scared!

[BuckWeet]

Well some news for you all, if you work for an AVAYA business partner, you should be a little bit scared right now. I work for Exp@nets and AVAYA has just purchased us. We were AVAYA's largest business partner, now we're owned by them. I'm rather stressed myself. I don't know what their plans are, but I sure hope for the best.. I'll keep you all up to date as soon as I find more info out..


BuckWeet

 

[raretickets]

Hey now! Interesting read in here. I was with Expanets until recently. A lot of my clients had problems with Expanets billing ... so it wasn't just Avaya with regards to leases and M&W contracts that had issues. In fact, I am some what surprised that a class action lawsuit has not been filed against Expanets for its billing practices. Anyways, this is all very interesting indeed! BTW, I believe Expanets accounted for just 10% of Avaya revenue? I saw some articles on it that may be a good read ... I'll post them in here shortly.

 

[raretickets]

Article Published: Friday, October 31, 2003
Avaya buys Douglas telecom Expanets
By Kris Hudson, Denver Post Business Writer






Avaya announced Thursday it bought Douglas County-based Expanets for $152 million at auction.

Expanets, a unit of bankrupt power company NorthWestern Corp. of Sioux Falls, S.D., provides telecommunications consulting and services to small and mid-sized companies. It employs 2,900 people, including 290 in Colorado.

Bedminster, N.J.-based Avaya, which itself employs 2,500 people in the Denver area, outbid private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Partners at NorthWestern's bankruptcy auction. Expanets was not part of NorthWestern's bankruptcy, but the sale will bring the power concern much needed cash.

Neither Avaya nor Expanets could provide details Thursday of how Avaya will operate the acquired company. Expanets resells some Avaya telecom services, accounting for 10 percent of Avaya's revenue as recently as 2001.


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"There are many customers who have Avaya products and service offerings through Expanets," Avaya spokesman Renaldo Juanso said. "It was critical that we provide our customers with continued quality support."

Stephen Chin, an analyst with UBS Warburg, saw two benefits for Avaya in the deal.

"First, it enables Avaya to get these employees from Expanets who can service non-Avaya products, like Cisco, Nortel," Chin said. "Second, it's probably better that Avaya got Expanets than the private-equity firm, because that firm's interest was going to be to drive higher margins out of the business as opposed to selling more of Avaya's products."

The acquisition represents a reunion of sorts. Expanets, formed in 1998, bought Lucent Technology's unit that provided services to small and medium-sized customers in April 2000. Later that year, Lucent spun off a division that provides those services to large companies and enterprises, eventually named Avaya.

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http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%7E33%7E1734410,00.html</url>

 

[raretickets]

Friday, October 31, 2003
Avaya Buys Reseller Expanets
CRN - Avaya acquired one of its largest resellers, Expanets, in a $152 million cash deal. The deal is Avaya's second services acquisition this month. Expanets, one of the nation's largest provider of converged communications for midsize businesses, also has reseller agreements with vendors such as Cisco, Nortel, Siemens, AT&T, Sun, NEC, Qwest, Toshiba, SBC, Verizon, Time Warner Telecom, Bell South, Microsoft, Inter-Tel and Dictaphone. The acquisition is the latest salvo by the telecommunications vendor to bolster its services business. Earlier this month they acquired the professional services and managed services business units from Vista Information Technologies for an undisclosed sum. The deal also included software tools that streamline integration of multichannel, multivendor contact-center networks.

http://casagrandeconsulting.blogspot.com/2003_10_26_casagrandeconsulting_archive.html

 

[raretickets]

NorthWestern Completes Sale of Expanets Unit to Avaya, Inc.




SIOUX FALLS, S.D., Nov. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NorthWestern
Corporation (OTC Pink Sheets: NTHWQ) today announced that it has completed the
sale of its Expanets communications services unit to Avaya, Inc. (NYSE: AV).
Under the terms of the purchase agreement, Avaya purchased substantially
all of the Expanets assets for $152 million in cash and the assumption of
specified liabilities, less certain post-closing working capital adjustments
and the payment of certain excluded liabilities. The proceeds to be received
by Expanets from the transaction following post-closing adjustments and the
payment of certain specified liabilities will be administered by Expanets in
accordance with the terms of applicable lending agreements, its corporate
charter and provisions of Delaware law. Following completion of this process,
NorthWestern estimates it will receive net cash proceeds of approximately $70
million.
Gary G. Drook, NorthWestern's President and Chief Executive Officer, said,
&quot;The successful divestiture of our largest nonutility business represents
significant progress toward our goal of becoming an energy-focused company.&quot;
As previously announced, Expanets engaged Bear, Stearns & Co. to conduct
an auction of the Expanets business subject to defined auction procedures. At
the auction held on Oct. 29, 2003, in New York, the final bid by Avaya was
approved by Expanets. NorthWestern, as controlling shareholder, consented to
the transaction.

About NorthWestern
NorthWestern Corporation is one of the largest providers of electricity
and natural gas in the Upper Midwest and Northwest, serving approximately
600,000 customers in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/s...03/0002065711&EDATE=WED+Nov+26+2003,+08:36+AM

 

[SuperTanker]

We had a brief problem with billing & Expanets. The thorn in our side regarding billing is however Avaya. They've been raping us on charges for over a year now, and no one is willing to help, or will take ownership of the problem to resolution.

Well, at least until I got my vendor to tell Avaya we would take our service contract to the vendor, that peeked their intreset.

 

[Jalapeno]

Well, at least we weren't the only ones with billing issues and Expanets. Notice I said were.