I cannot resist... I am your typical "Nortel" guy... and this is my edumucated opinion (yes I purposely misspelled it). I do believe that the BCM product will continue (makes money and outsells the IP Office 2 to 1) if they are thinking business - easy decision and they have hinted to this already. The Data side of the house... well no brainer again... 1 - continue giving Extreme the profits off of the sales or take them for ourselves... again easy decision... make more money... side effect (or bonus) is we (Avaya) now have our own full solution (voice and data)... great for marketing! SCS/sipXecs - a little birdie said that the IBM (System X) solution was given the green light in the "new" future but support of the open source community (sipxecs/sipfoundry) has been dodged several times by everyone I have spoke with. I can say that I will be horrified if this product does not continue, it has the most promise in my eyes (my opinion - not yours!). Ahh Now onto Enterprise Voice... lots of overlap in products... huge existing base... this is where they have to play it one of two ways... 1 - typical spin game and while we are all not looking (including our customers) pull the carpet out from under us... oops too late type deal ... Something like... great migration path... easily integrated... re-use hardware... all new application (not just rebranded.. hint hint)... Open Source SIP based... blah blah blah... you know the type of game I am talking about. Once again this is hypothetical... They could play this game and rope customers into a new "merged platform" that is a complete "rip and replace", although the customer will not be aware of this till it's all said and done (IE: everything is replaced). The sad part is that the Nortel Partners will be none-the-wiser either, until it's too late to say anything and take food out of their families mouths...hmm wonder what the choice will be? AGAIN HYPOTHETICAL... OR - Option 2 - Really develop a unified solution - best of both worlds - Avaya's simplicity (we Nortel guys can admit that the Avaya interface is MUCH better) and Nortel's scalability (they both have stability), offer customers a clean migration - without sacrificing features. By doing this you will gain loyalty of some customers and some vendors, not all, as we have seen now-a-days... the dollar is the equalizer. Now let's look at these two options from a business stand-point...
Option 1= Marketing Improves as it can be spun in a positive light (since it does integrate), very little development costs (huge reduction in cost and risk here), if done correctly/quietly hardware sales will increase (as new Avaya equipment, software and maintenance will be purchased)... shhh, remember - it's not rip and replace - its integrated!
Pretty Sound Business Case if you were to do the actual math.
Option 2= Marketing Improves, it truly is a positive move for customers (on both sides). Huge development costs (very expensive and timelines always drift on projects of this nature...sometimes years). Product\s will be feature rich, easily managed, highly scalable and 5-9's stability, truly best of all worlds. You will see the maximum loyalty if this route is chosen... what would that equate to... really? What would your customers spend for the "best" product? I am sure that you all have dealt with Shoretel and Cisco on many occasion. Although their products are not in the same league, we contend with them on a regular basis...why... the dollar. Cisco gives it away (well initially- they will get it back eventually guaranteed) and Shoretel is simply an inexpensive product - all-be-it limited in features and scale when compared. We simply lose due to price... Now how much could the new "Avaya" sell this "Truly" great product for... I think you know the answer... So do I. With this cut-throat pricing how can you invest large amounts of capital when you know that any dollar invested in integration will only reduce margin. It will be a great PR move and customer loyalty will be maximized but again I ask you what does that equate to?
I think that the guys and/or gals at Avaya (well the investment group really) know how to weigh this properly... well at least they will know how to use proper grammar and punctuation.
Now you think about what you would do? Myself - I am old-school and I like the old ways of business myself (you know the handshake days) when you could trust someones word. I am a realist though. How is business done today? What makes more money?
ONCE AGAIN! THIS IS ONLY MY PERSONAL OPINION!
Bryan J Miles
Systems Engineer
Service Communications, Inc.
