Future of Avaya 21

[teletechman]

Just wondering what anyone is hearing on this. I have been looking at their website and no mention of the IP Office 500 only cloud offerings now. Not sure what this means for us as installers or maintainers but it doesn't look good for the future. Every piece of literature I get from them is about the cloud.
Mike

 

[Nortel4Ever]

The future of Avaya was cast in stone when Ring Central bailed them out...

 

[BFG9K]

Certainly doesn't fill me with hope to see that IP Office isn't even mentioned on Avaya's site any more, and the latest software releases have been absolutely abysmal. It feels like they've only got 4-5 people working on the entire IPO software stack these days.

It's just day after day of new bugs, announcements of releases that will be months late, and when it does finally arrive you get a whole new wave of bugs to find and deal with.

 

[crumthwacket]

My new account manager has had 6 jobs prior to today in the last 16/17 years (found this out via Linked In). Everyone deserves a chance but this doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

Why would any Avaya BP use them for hosted? Their remote support has deteriorated and RC's ratings aren't very good.

As I've said before, I'm happy to be closer to the end of my career than at the beginning.

 

[Nortel4Ever]

The Avaya Service Delivery Tier III Operations Leader, the guy who directed the technical support for IP Office, recently got reassigned and is now the Technical Operations Leader for Avaya Cloud Office. So that's got to say something too.
...and I'm with you crumthwacket, I'm closer to the end of my career than the beginning too and with what's been happening in this industry I'm glad of that.

 

[megaa]

95% (or above) of Avaya's income is based on the on-prem solutions (aura and IPO).
Now there is a direction from the managemeent to push everything to the cloud.
But, if they release the on-prem solutions such as the ip office platform, they are going to bankrupt witihin a few monthes.
So my opininon is, that they will keep the IPO for the future (3-5 years is 100%)

 

[safenestvmem]

Feels like Nortel all over again.

How are the rest of the phone system providers doing?

 

[teletechman]

So who will be the big player for on prem or is everyone eating the cheese about the cloud?
Mike

 

[Pepp77]

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of our first non avaya phone system going live (this was an 8x8 system). We are not a huge company (less than 30 people) and over the past year have installed zero avayas, performed only about half a dozen upgrades and gone live with more than 40 8x8 systems.

Last year when they announced the cancellation of powered by and containerized we were thankfully already getting disillusioned and so were already looking at alternatives, and just made the jump sooner, now with Scansource Europe also basically being gone we are even more sure it was the right move.

| ACSS SME |

 

[IamaSherpa]

Even if they are pushing to ACO that platform actually can't replace the IPO on prem for functionality and features, additionally the Avaya management think all their resellers and busoness partners will accept to leave the on prem world to move in the cloud one only, it means just sell licenses with no margin and no added value in implementing, mainaining, etc etc, that's crazy.

 

[critchey]

It is rather sad that Avaya is just this clueless. It is obvious they have reduced staff to develop and test their own software. They have to be thinking that they will fully transition to pure hosted soon so they can relax on prem... the problem is there already tarnished name is now being run through the mud with their poor releases, complete lack of testing, and scrabbling to pull releases after releasing them. My question is their on prem has been so bad why would anyone decide to use their hosted? You aren't the only game in town, you aren't the market leader, you have a bad name and a terrible track record. Pushing people towards hosted does no good for Avaya if they go with a different hosted solution... but Avaya doesn't seem to even to understand people have choices other then them.

The truth is just an excuse for lack of imagination.

 

[kyle555]

What if IPO could be a gateway off ACO?

 

[aoh74]

It's becoming embarassing trying to cover for the crap Avaya IPO builds they seem to release without any QC whatsoever.
After all these years in this game this is the worst I have ever seen.

 

[XLNTech1]

It's pretty obvious that some exec at Avaya heard the term "cloud" and told everyone that's the way the business needs to go no matter what. The fact that they won't integrate IPO and ACO is one of the dumbest business moves I've ever heard of. Their cloud features are a joke compared to the prem and not great compared to most other cloud pbx vendors. The ONLY reason to consider ACO would be if I could bridge in my IPO sites either for migration or to get the prem features in certain sites. Otherwise, it's a TON cheaper to go with almost every other cloud pbx out there. Not to mention, why would I EVER reward Avaya for screwing me and my clients over by walking away from their installed base like this? There are suggestions I would make to them if the posting guidelines allowed those types of suggestions.

 

[Johnhyde]

I think it's too late for Avaya, they don't listen to the partners who are selling the product.
Gone backward in development and product not moved with what partners and customer want's from a system.

Back in 2014 at one of Avaya partner events, a number of partners suggested Avaya should be developing a pubic cloud rather than a private cloud offering that they just launched. They didn't listen, and then developed containerized in 2020 which I think a good product, just need a bit more development work and features.

Now they messed it all up with ACO.

Time to move on, if Avaya doesn't want to listen to its partners, another manufacture will.

 

[safenestvmem]

As a low voltage contractor it was just always a natural to install and maintain the voice side of the customer's network. I also install data cabling but I'm not an IT expert so I provide the network cabling for the it vendor. It's been a good marriage for 40 years.

Without being able to install the on-premise phone equipment it's really just ending up being drudgery work putting the network voice and data cabling in.

Also the relationship with the customer is pretty much over after the cabling is installed.

I've had 20 year relationships with clients come to an end overnight when they've decided to install cloud-based services like Cox's IP Centrex.

from what I've heard it's very expensive for a monthly rental and the customer service is never as Good as a local vendor on site can provide.

Plenty of outages and QOS issues constantly. Things that never happened with on premise equipment and services like traditional PRI and analog.

I'm 60 so I'm coming to the end of my career I'm glad I'm not starting out but it's very sad. Oftentimes

I'm treated no better than the cleaning crew sometimes by younger staff members because they think that what I do is so simple just plug in a network connection to a handset and it's ready to go and that's something they can do themselves so why pay me or have any respect for me.

 

[frontier4195]

We were a AT&T , Lucent , Avaya dealer since the early 90's. We left Avaya and went to Mitel in 1015 due to Avaya's financial issues and the bad dealer support they had. Mitel was stable and much better to us. Forward to 2021 and Mitel is just like Avaya now. Everyhing is cloud. Customers are bombarded with cloud marketing so its hard to compete. I don't know how a business can look at the cloud financially and move to the cloud. Small Ip office with 10 phones $5000.00. It will last 10+ years. 10 cloud phones $2500-$3500 a year. 10 years $30,000.

 

[Hosted2021]

well i hate to say it but i used to be on here 5-6 years ago and was slated for saying the future is hosted its nice to be proved right. we now have removed 90% of our customers on prem systems and our customers are loving it. the covid epademic has shown the benefits and we are happy as we have never made so much profit.

 

[IamaSherpa]

MMMhh @Hosted2021, if you sell ACO where is the profit? Just selling licenses with a little marginality?

 

[ipohead]

Some of the push to the cloud is about a continuous revenue stream rather than years between kit being upgraded. Many software vendors are moving to a subscription model.