Less than a month after formally completing the acquisition of Nortel's Enterprise Communications division Avaya released the much-awaited roadmap for integration of product lines. Comms Dealer caught up with Avaya's Managing Director for UK & Ireland, Lee Shorten, to find out what the implications are for local channels.

The week surrounding the launch of the new roadmap was a busy one for Shorten. His time being strictly allotted by his PA as he moves from press interview to reseller meeting explaining the new strategy, calming partners' fears and highlighting new opportunities. "We've had all of our resellers in over the last three days," said Shorten. "To make sure that they've seen the announcements, read the releases online and understand what's going on."

The roadmap gives a timescale of around 18 months for full convergence of the two product lines, and a commitment to supporting existing product lines while technology and interface designs are unified between platforms like Avaya's Aura and Nortel's Agile Communications Environment (ACE).
Shorten noted: "There was anxiety in the reseller community because many of our customers would have staked their future on one or other of the brands. Giving them a roadmap and a migration strategy will have helped that."

Importantly, he says, the introduction of an entirely new partner program, Avaya Connect, will emphasise the 'level playing field' position regardless of a seller's background. "Nortel people thought they were going to be fast-tracked into an old, traditional Avaya program, but this is a very structured and level playing field for our partners," added Shorten. "Rewards are based on a competency model, so the more partners invest in our products the better the rewards are. We believe that that will be benefit our end users more strongly, and it puts both partner sets in the same position."

Avaya's commitment to the channel has been proven over the last year by its migration to an indirect model. According to Shorten, 95 per cent of all new Avaya business in Q4 came through channel partners, while Nortel was up from around 70 per cent to a similar amount. While the product roadmap has been warmly received by the channel, the next challenge for the management team is to unify the distribution model along similar lines. It's not a decision he intends to rush. "Distribution is where we are now in terms of what's the next part of our strategy," Shorten explains. "We need to get the feel of the natural size of the business. Clearly, Nortel has been suppressed over the last 12 months, but it's hard to know whether that's because of the chapter 11 filing or the recession. We need to understand that before we can decide on the right model to support the partners that we have in place."

At present, he says, there's little crossover in either distribution or reseller channels, with few partners historically carrying both product lines. Some are keen to gain access to new areas of the portfolio before the integration is complete. "Some partners are talking about which products to upskill on now, and which to wait for until the full migration of products is complete, especially with products like ACE which Nortel resellers can take back into their customer base. Avaya customers are interested in IVR, which Nortel has been strong in. For Nortel partners to be taking Session Manager back into their customers, too, is a huge thing for them."

It's no secret that other vendors have been using Nortel's position to start FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) campaigns and capitalise on the company's misfortune. Shorten believes that this will continue for at least the short-term, but praises Nortel parnters for holding out and is bullish about performance over the last year. "Some of our competitors will be talking about the length of time it's going to take for integration. But the reality is that Nortel's channel partners were fiercely loyal over the last 12 months, which we really appreciate," said Shorten. They're an asset we can integrate into the organisation and have kept it in great shape. "Competitors will continue to run it down, but it's interesting to see how well Nortel and Avaya have done in a market that has clearly shrunk."

If anyone is left in any doubt over the future naming conventions of the merging product lines, though, Shorten is absolutely clear. "We are an Avaya organisation and branded company. There's just a process to get the various labels and silk screenings changed until all the products carry the same name."

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