Voice vendors square off over acquisition effects

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 19 August 2010 12:22

IT Industry - Strategy

In the wake of the acquisition of Nortel by Avaya, companies that previously bought products from both companies are now instead looking to Alcatel-Lucent as a second source of products, according to Tom Burns, president, enterprise and strategic industries at Alcatel-Lucent. But Avaya executives understandably disagreed.

While the acquisition brought Alcatel-Lucent and Avaya into greater competition, it provided an opportunity for the former company as it resulted in "people looking further out into the market [to consider other suppliers]" said Michael McBrien, senior vice president, sales and operations in Alcatel-Lucent's Asia Pacific enterprise market group.

Avaya previously presented more competition for Alcatel-Lucent than Nortel did, he claimed.

Mr Burns described Avaya's post-merger roadmap as "confusing" and pointed to the clarity of his own company's vision for the Genesys products and its SIP expertise.

Rob Wells, Avaya's managing director for Australia and New Zealand disagreed, saying he doesn't believe companies that were previously customers of both Avaya and Nortel are now looking to Alcatel-Lucent.

The reason, he said, was that such customers were typically buying voice products from Avaya and data products from Nortel.

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