Avaya and Nortel face tough task

Getting away with merger: channel players Nortel and Avaya have disparate partner bases

As the dust settles on Avaya and Nortel’s mega-merger, industry players say combining the two channels could be a mammoth task.

Avaya won the auction for Nortel’s enterprise wing last month with a $900m (£563m) offer. Avaya VARs have been advised to continue regarding Nortel as the competition until the deal is finalised.

Darren Boyce, chief executive of Nortel Gold partner Proximity Communications, welcomed the deal. But he predicted merging Avaya’s voice and Nortel’s networking channels would be tough.

“Partners will have to decide whether to become a converged provider,” he said. “Some will not want to make that investment.”

Proximity was formed in March through the merger of VARs Applinet and Unified Group. Boyce hinted there could be more consolidation opportunities.

“We have gone through one (merger), so we are not alien to it,” he said. “It is all about opportunity.”

Steve Niven, sales director of support services firm Networks First, claimed the two vendors had largely disparate channels. “There is going to be some work bridging that divide,” he said.

“Avaya [maintenance contracts] are something we have considered doing. There is an opportunity for us, but not in the short term.”

Tony Parish, managing director of Avaya Platinum partner G3 Telecommunications, said the deal gave Avaya partners a much bigger base. He claimed he would look at Nortel’s data kit, but added: “Some of its portfolio is a bit aged.”

Avaya already has close ties with networking vendor HP ProCurve, having joined its open standards alliance earlier this year as an IP telephony partner.

But ProCurve’s UK and Ireland country manager Darryl Brick claimed the buyout of rival Nortel would not affect the partnership.

“It is a marathon, not a sprint,” he said. “We are developing products, channels and routes to market.”