By Dhaval Valia, CRN Network, October 7, 2009, 1200 hrs
Avaya India is all set to unleash its India plans with a go-to-market strategy to tap channels for the first time in the country. For this purpose, the company recently partnered Redington India, appointed Bejoy Antony, ex-VP at Cisco, as its channel head, and is in the process of signing up partners.
“Till recently, Avaya India was only a holding company of Avaya GlobalConnect,” explained Jangoo Dalal, Managing Director of Avaya India. “But we will now operate as a business entity bringing our products and solutions to the Indian market through channels. Redington will distribute our contact center (CC) and unified communication (UC) solutions for SMBs. We are in the process of enrolling and certifying partners, and our goal is to have at least 50 certified partners by year-end.”
Avaya is starting local operations because the UC and CC markets are growing at a rapid pace and the company enjoys market leadership in both segments, ahead of rival Cisco. “According to Frost & Sullivan, the UC market size in India was roughly $670 million in 2008 and is likely to grow to $1 billion by 2010. Avaya leads the market with 20 percent and 34 percent share in the UC and CC segments respectively,” said Dalal.
“The share of SMB (less than 250 nodes) in the UC and CC space is pegged at 30 percent and is growing faster than the rest of the market. This explains why we are aggressively taking the tier-2 channel route,” he added.
The company recently launched the new version of IP Office, its flagship communication solution for SMBs. “We have solutions for SMBs which are appropriate for their specific needs, as opposed to the normal market practice of downsizing or force-fitting enterprise solutions for them. Appropriateness is a must because SMBs have their own unique requirements,” Dalal stated.
With its inherent strength in voice solutions, Avaya says that its technology is more suited for UC. “Unifying voice and data for UC has become a complex process for companies. Many customers today have PBX and other communication systems from different vendors using different platforms. There is no easy way to manage these systems centrally, and this creates tremendous management overhead for IT. Most UC solutions available from vendors require businesses to rip and replace legacy systems, but Aura, our architecture for UC, can seamlessly unify dozens of individual communication systems,” said Dalal.
Avaya is the most likely candidate to acquire the bankrupt Nortel because the regulatory authority in Canada has recently approved the company’s bid of $915 million. The acquisition would make Avaya a market leader in the IP-voice space, ahead of Cisco, and will also provide it entry in the data networking space with Nortel’s portfolio. Informed Dalal: “Once the transaction is closed we will undertake a comprehensive evaluation of the combined portfolio of the two companies and announce product roadmaps within 30 days.” |