Mitel Chapter 11

[AH64Armament]

Mitel filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy the other day.

I've been working on Mitel systems since 1997 and have noticed a significant change in structure (detriment) in the past few years. The most recent change is migration from AMC to the Licenses and Services hasn't been a good experience.
I have worked for two different Mitel Dealers since 1997. The first of which filed Chapter 11 in October 2000. I hung on till July 2002, while watching that company fall apart. A short while after I left, the company went to their next court date and had to give a state of the company. With myself and two others having recently left, the judge decided that the company was no longer capable and sold the assets. One of the others that left had gone to another company. He and that company were in the courtroom and bought the assets and they started the company back under a new name.

I had gone to another dealer and have been here since. I advised the owners that I will never go through another Chapter 11 again and that if they were to file, that would be effectively my resignation notice.

Mitel's changes in the past 10 years have been puzzling to say the least. Most recent changes with their SWA has driven off more customers than have stayed.

I'm personally certified in almost every product that Mitel has made in the past 30 years, and have seen many neat products just die due to poor management.



I honestly think retiring the SX200 was a horrible idea.

Retiring the MiVoice Recorder (Oaisys) was a terrible idea too as the replacement is considerably more expensive.

Forcing the Intertel business model wasn't a good plan, and drove a lot of VAR's away too.


I guess we'll see where this Chapter 11 takes them.

 

[cdent]

Hopefully they're able to recover and come back stronger. I've worked for/on Mitel systems since Mitel acquired Inter-tel, and worked on Inter-tel since 1999. I can't speak for the SX200, as I didn't get much hands on with it when Mitel bought Inter-tel. The 3300 was what I mainly worked on. I did work on a few SX200s, and from what I remember of them, they felt very much like the GMX line of Inter-tel products. They served a purpose when there wasn't anything better to work on, but once more modern options were available (Axxess on the Inter-tel side, 3300 on the Mitel side), they became archaic.

I would agree with you about the MiVCR. I've worked with MIR a bit, and can say that the MiVCR was much more user-friendly.

As for the Inter-tel business model, Inter-tel was a company always known for being in the black, at least when Steve Mihaylo ran it. Not sure why that wouldn't be a good idea to learn from.

 

[AH64Armament]

Hopefully they're able to recover and come back stronger. I've worked for/on Mitel systems since Mitel acquired Inter-tel, and worked on Inter-tel since 1999. I can't speak for the SX200, as I didn't get much hands on with it when Mitel bought Inter-tel. The 3300 was what I mainly worked on. I did work on a few SX200s, and from what I remember of them, they felt very much like the GMX line of Inter-tel products. They served a purpose when there wasn't anything better to work on, but once more modern options were available (Axxess on the Inter-tel side, 3300 on the Mitel side), they became archaic.

I would agree with you about the MiVCR. I've worked with MIR a bit, and can say that the MiVCR was much more user-friendly.

As for the Inter-tel business model, Inter-tel was a company always known for being in the black, at least when Steve Mihaylo ran it. Not sure why that wouldn't be a good idea to learn from.

I agree... hopefully they come back stronger than before.
As for the merger with intertel, they became difficult to work with Sales and Marketing after the merger.
The impression they gave dealers is that they bought out Intertel as it was a failing company that Mitel wanted some parts of.. then they turned around and forced the intertel ways into Mitel.

I'm not saying it was a better business model than Mitel's, but it certainly made things more difficult in some respects.

 

[cdent]

Sounds like the Mitel dealers might have gotten the same "creative writing" description of the situation, that Inter-tel employees got. I did some research after that whole merger went down. If you look at dates when articles and interviews were published, the CEO that took over Inter-tel from Steve Mihaylo, had been talking to Mitel about selling Inter-tel to them, long before he actually was put into the CEO chair. A lot of Mitel and Inter-tel folks got screwed over in that deal. It's been 18 years removed (wow, that just dawned on me how long ago it was) since that debacle. Mitel has done fairly well for itself, minus the huge debt they're filing Chapter 11 to get away from. For the sake of business, and all of those still working on and selling Mitel, I hope they come out better for it.