Avaya looks to battle cloud rivals with new business unit

Vendor forms cloud organisation and poaches IBM VP to head up operations

Avaya has formed a new organisation with a singular focus on the industry money-spinner of cloud.

Tasked with running the new business is Mercer Rowe, who has been appointed senior vice president and general manager of Avaya Cloud.

Rowe joins Avaya from IBM, where he served as vice president of strategic partners for the company's cloud and Watson platforms.

His responsibilities will span public, private and hybrid cloud, including cloud R&D, application development and services, alongside sales for the new business unit.

Before joining IBM, Rowe founded and served as CEO of VMware vCloud Service, a joint venture with SoftBank to deliver cloud services in Japan.

He also incubated VMware's own cloud service business, and spent a decade with cloud-powered start-ups in the enterprise software and service provider spaces.

"Mercer brings a wealth of knowledge that will help us expand our business in the cloud, which is critical to our growth," said Jim Chirico, president and chief executive of Avaya.

"By creating a business solely focused on cloud products and services, and with Mercer's leadership, we will accelerate the delivery of cloud solutions that meet the growing needs of our customers and partners."

Rowe said the transformation of unified communications and collaboration software and the contact centre to deliver cloud is still in the early innings and the growth opportunity for Avaya is "one of the biggest cloud opportunities in the market today".

"I'm excited to join the new executive team at Avaya to capture the growth being driven by cloud, digital transformation, mobility, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and IoT," added Rowe.

In March 2017, Avaya appointed ScanSource as the first wholesale distribution in the EU for its new mid-market cloud solution.

The vendor is in a rebuilding phase after it filed for bankruptcy in January 2017.