Avaya offers life raft to Nortel's partner base

Avaya has become the latest vendor to launch an assault on the partner base of stricken rival Nortel with discount and training incentives.

Set to go live today, Avaya’s programme will target jumpy Nortel resellers with the incentive of being fast-tracked on training, sales, marketing and support to quickly deliver Avaya’s portfolio of unified communications (UC) and contact centre solutions.

Nortel resellers will also receive bonus incentives for every new Avaya customer and product order.

Michelle Jones, channel marketing EMEA at Avaya, joined the vendor from Juniper Networks last month to spearhead the recruitment drive and instigate its ‘channel-centric’ strategy.

She said: “With the launch of the UC Avaya Aura product, we are targeting Nortel partners to join us and take comfort in a strong brand and long-term indirect strategy. We are going to be very aggressive on this.

“Nortel partners can easily transfer their knowledge to Avaya to generate revenue as quickly as possible. We want expert resellers that are ready to make an investment in our training.”

Paul Blundell, managing director of telecoms reseller iQual, said the programme would also help existing Avaya partners.

“Nortel has a strong link with BT so most customers will already have a Nortel system installed,” he said. “As an existing Avaya partner we have been made aware of the new discounts and bonuses, which is a great incentive to encourage customers to upgrade.”

Avaya claims more than 90 Nortel and Siemens channel partners have joined its Business programme over the last few months in EMEA. More than 16,000 companies worldwide are currently enrolled.