News

You’ve seen refurbished, re-manufactured, used, previously owned, just to name a few. The equipment you want and need is available. Where? It’s called the secondary market.
The secondary market is not a special company that sells equipment. Rather it is a group of vendors that specialize in supplying used equipment into the marketplace. Companies have the opportunity to save substantially by looking into this alternative source of equipment. This market is an excellent source for parts, phones, and complete systems. Also don’t be mislead into expanding an older system and paying new prices for something you will never economically recover from.

Many Nortel clients have been left with the feeling that they are on an island with no support to continue on with what is an excellent platform. The dreaded term end of life is constantly being thrown at them. Teldisco inc. has been able to help many clients faced with this situation. We have the parts and capability to keep those systems going in an economical and efficient manner. In today’s business environment one resource frequently gets trashed before its time: the telephones. Fact: Telephone equipment is electronic. It just doesn’t wear out, like trucks and furniture and machinery. Get a second opinion. Teldisco Inc. exists to help you conserve this one asset wisely. Call Teldisco Inc. for that second opinion.

As Canadians we beat up our High Tech companies. This past week has been a disaster for Rim but what I find disappointing is the way our press and media  wants to tear apart this great Canadian success story. Listening to all reports you would think the two principals at RIM are complete idiots and that all the smart minds have left Waterloo. Comparisons to Nortel are ridiculous and disappointing. When are we as Canadians going to wake up.

Imagine being in a business where your competitor gives away it’s product free. I was with some one on the weekend and they run a newspaper business. Small Ads which they use to sell for $35 dollars have now been lost to kijiji and Craigs list glad I am not in that business.

Market Leaders
Seven companies accounted for about 80% of 2010 PBX sales. Cisco had the largest global market share at 19%. Avaya was second, controlling 15% of the market. Avaya’s achievement was noteworthy because it represented a significant improvement over the company’s 11% global market share in 2009. Avaya’s surge reflected a 54% year over year increase in PBX shipments for the company, including add-on lines to old Nortel systems. Avaya, which closed its Nortel acquisition in December 2009, had little sales assurance entering 2010, before elbowing its way to success.

Both Cisco and Avaya’s 2010 global market share are less than their shares of the North America market which were 35% and 23% respectively. Why the difference? While both players have good distribution outside North America, hometown teams tend to perform well in their own markets.

In 2010 Alcatel-Lucent commanded an estimated 55% share of the market in its home, France. Siemens, a colossus in Western Europe, commanded 16% of the overall EMEA market in 2010.

In APAC, NEC and Panasonic collectively controlled almost half the market. We estimate Panasonic sold 52% of its worldwide shipments in Japan. Panasonic is the world’s third largest supplier of PBXs and the dominant player offering inexpensive phone systems to small companies and office branches worldwide.

Aastra played out a novel strategy that gave the company 15% market share in EMEA. It achieved this by largely eschewing global strategies and tactics in favor of local everything. Operating with a decentralized model, Aastra’s 2010 value was responsiveness to the local markets and the customers of companies Aastra acquired. These businesses effectively remain intact, retaining former product lines, installed base and distribution channels, even as they come under the ownership of Aastra. While Aastra comes across as a local play, it is also represented on global opportunities, since the Ericsson acquisition set Aastra up in 100 countries.

Research In Motion (RIM) recently announced plans to make BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5 available to more corporate phone systems and unified communications applications. BlackBerry MVS 5.1 with voice over Wi-Fi calling will be available this summer for Avaya Aura 6.1, Avaya CS1000 Communication Server, as well as legacy phone systems such as Avaya Communications Manager and Nortel Communication Server. It is currently available for Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, and Mitel Communications Director
Given Avaya’s strong market position and the substantial installed base of legacy Nortel systems, this development seems to me like a natural. BlackBerry gains access to a huge market, while Avaya and Nortel users gain access to a great mobile handset. BlackBerry MVS 5 has also been re-architected to be more extensible with third party applications and phone systems.
Someone recently spoke with Andrew Short, RIM Manager of BlackBerry MVS, who was kind enough to take their call in the midst of BlackBerry World, which drew somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,000 BlackBerry enthusiasts, including users, alliance members and channel partners. Short explained that enterprises with investments in Avaya and legacy Nortel systems will soon be able to leverage Unified Communications (UC) solutions on their BlackBerry smartphones to the benefit of their IT organizations, end users and customers. “RIM has done a lot of work under the covers to maximize BlackBerry benefits through unifying corporate phone systems with wireless communications. BlackBerry MVS 5 is integrated directly into the BlackBerry smartphone client and supports calls over cellular or Wi-Fi networks with seamless handoff. A user can make or take a call over the office Wi-Fi network office, walk outside, get in the car and drive home (We advise the use of a Bluetooth headset for safety reasons.), with the call automatically and completely seamlessly switched over to the cellular network and then back to a SOHO Wi-Fi network at home. BlackBerry MVS offers the convenience of single number reach and supports phone system features like hold, transfer and ad-hoc conferencing.” Calls are routed through the enterprise phone system, so least-cost routing offers savings on outbound long-distance and international roaming charges.
Short noted that BlackBerry MVS initially was offered in North America through RIM’s direct sales force and a small number of carriers, with RIM technologists exclusively responsible for system implementation. In the meantime, a growing group of channel partners have been certified and since January 2011 have assumed full responsibility for sales and implementation, as well.
Although BlackBerry MVS 5.1 will not be released in North America until June, BlackBerry MVS has passed the stress test. A large global bank with 27,000 plus employees, has put MVS through its paces as part of a global rollout they shared with attendees of BlackBerry World. LTT Vending Group, the largest independently-owned vending company for refreshment services in the United Kingdom, uses BlackBerry MVS to increase the professionalism and productivity of their mobile workforce. More than 80 percent of the LTT workforce is equipped with BlackBerry smart phones and 25 percent of those currently are set up with BlackBerry MVS. LTT projects reducing telecommunication charges by at least one third as a result.
Definitely a plus for both Avaya and Nortel Legacy owners.

The Nortel Enterprise Solutions (NES) customer has been concerned about the connection of the NES phones to Avaya’s IP Office (IPO). Problem solved. At last week’s “Think Big” event presented by Avaya, it was announced that the migration from NES products to Avaya IP Office was fully implemented in the release of IPO 7.0.

The advent of IP based telephone systems has almost always supported analog phones and devices like analog FAX and PC modems. The support of SIP phones has become very common. But what happens to the customer that has proprietary digital and/or IP phones from Nortel? The lack of support by Avaya has limited the sales of IP Office to these customers because of the high cost of replacing the proprietary Nortel phones. There are approximately 14 million Nortel users worldwide according to Avaya.

IPO 7.0 allows the NES customer with the Business Communications Manager (BCM) and Norstar phones to use their NES phones with IP Office. This preserves the customer’s original investment thereby saving 40% to 60% of the cost of implementing IPO with new phones. Release 7.0 of IPO now supports the 1100 and 1200 series IP phones that are supported by the BCM and the associated Key Expansion Modules using SIP. IPO also supports T7000 and M7000 series sets, Audio Conferencing Unit and Digital Mobility Solutions.

This support is in itself very important. But the process of configuring the IPO when all the information is located in the BCM can be difficult, time consuming and error prone. Avaya also announced and demonstrated the capability to automatically configure the IPO by connecting it to the BCM. The Avaya Data Migration Tool simplifies the process of transferring the configuration information and other data stored on the BCM. Phone extensions and voice mails are all transferred by cable from the BCM to IPO.

The demonstration of the Data Migration Tool by Dr. Alan Baratz SVP and President, Avaya Global Solutions, took a few minutes to accomplish. In large configurations, the transfers may take up to one hour according to Avaya. The Tool is not only an advantage to the customer; it also reduces the labor of the Avaya partner to complete the transfer. It appears that this process can eliminate any errors in the data migration between the two product lines.

The abilities to retain NES phones and support an automated transfer of information should stimulate the growth of IP Office. This will also change the proportion of Avaya product sales to Nortel sales eventually moving Nortel customers to an Avaya platform. Avaya announced that they have sold 200,000 IPO systems supporting 7 million users as of 2011.

Playing golf only with one leg. This is really inspirational!

Golf and the Balance – What an inspiration! See the Youtube below.

As Frank Dunn works away at trying to prove his innocence for wrongful dismissal and illegal activities at Nortel I wonder whether he might have had a better chance getting aid form the government than Mike Z the American CEO. It is my understanding that Frank Dunn is close to getting his day in court and that he has been doing most of the legal work himself trying to save on costs. Not too many have empathy for his situation, I do. If he took accruals for losses and then brought those same accruals back on the books as profits that is wrong. I believe there is more to this than we know. I have been in his company on more than one occasion and I find it extremely difficult to question his integrity. We should all know soon.

Mitel

Mitel ranked the number two software provider in the 2011 Branham300
Mitel announced it has been ranked the number two software provider for Canadian ICT Companies in the 2011 Edition of the Branham300, a listing of Canada’s ICT industry leaders, as ranked by revenues. Mitel’s transition from a hardware company to a software solutions provider was solidified when the company unveiled the Mitel Freedom architecture in 2010. The Mitel Freedom architecture is a single, cloud-ready software stream that delivers an array of communications options for businesses looking to integrate a voice solution into best-in-class networks and applications. The Branham300 is currently operating in its 18th year. The top 300 publicly-traded and privately-held Canadian companies are included in multiple categories, including the top 250 Canadian ICT companies and several sub lists such as Top Software Providers.