Never Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.
Will A Private Avaya Have What It Takes To Battle Cisco?Will A Private Avaya Have What It Takes To Battle Cisco?
Avaya late yesterday said it has <a href="http://www.information.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=HUBPEF25KE1HIQSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=199901276">agreed to be acquired by two private equity firms</a> -- Silver Lake and TPG Capital -- for $8.2 billion. Now that it looks like Avaya will go private, will the company be better positioned to compete with Cisco for the future of the IP telephony business?
1 Min Read
Avaya late yesterday said it has agreed to be acquired by two private equity firms -- Silver Lake and TPG Capital -- for $8.2 billion. Now that it looks like Avaya will go private, will the company be better positioned to compete with Cisco for the future of the IP telephony business?Avaya and Cisco have been fighting for the enterprise IP telephony market for some time. In recent months, Avaya scrapped its way back and barely nudged Cisco off the top spot:
Avaya regained the top spot in the Web-based corporate phone-equipment market in the first quarter with 25.3 percent of sales, compared with Cisco's 25.2 percent. Second-quarter profit soared 50 percent to $38 million, or 8 cents a share, after severance costs dwindled, the company said in April. Sales increased 4.5 percent to $1.29 billion.
Avaya's profit and revenue have grown more slowly than at San Jose, California-based Cisco, which entered the phone- equipment market eight years ago. Unlike Cisco, Avaya is saddled with older, traditional phone systems, which have seen declining sales as customers upgrade to faster Web equipment.
Avaya looks well positioned to compete in this market. Their recent acquisition of Ubiquity Software, a provider of SIP server and signaling systems, gives them even more ammunition.
And it wasn't that long ago that Cisco finally added SIP to Call Manager. While Cisco has an amazing brand in networking, the company's IP communications products have only recently caught up to the rest of the market.
What do you think? Will a private Avaya be better able to capture the enterprise IP market? Or will Cisco take the enterprise VoIP market?
About the Author
You May Also Like
More Insights
