Nortel purchase of Avaya seen as a confusion-builder

Perspective from a leading technology analyst offers that if enterprise VoIP solutions provider Avaya ends up being acquired by Nortel, users could be in for a pain in the digital assets.

"But for customers, the combination might not be such a good deal," writes Steven Lawson of the IDG News Service.

"Although Nortel is a bigger company, Avaya is the stronger of the two in IP telephony, which is where enterprise phone systems are going," Lawson's spot-on perspective continues. "Integration with Nortel and its unified communications partner, Microsoft, would cause a lot of confusion for customers, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. Avaya has made great technical strides recently, especially in software, he said.

"Darwin should take over here and let the strongest survive," Kerravala said.

To be fair, though, Lawson points out that one possible benefit to customers of a Nortel acqisition of Avaya to customers would be a "one-stop shop with a strong telephony lineup as well as enterprise data networking gear, such as switches, which Avaya lacks, Lawson describes Dell'Oro Group analyst Alan Weckel as saying.