Tag Archive for: PBX

Mitel to buy Toshiba’s Telecom division

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In blog #34 (March ’17) we posted that Toshiba was shutting down its Telecom division headquartered in Irvine CA.  At the time of the announcement it was a pure shut down… Toshiba did not try to sell their Telecommunications division but simply decided to shut it down.

The premise PBX market continues to shrink and as the Cloud telephony business ramps up, there was not enough runway for Toshiba to make the transition.  Toshiba sales have been declining for some time and the company has become far less visible and innovative than many of its competitors. Toshiba made an excellent PBX that competed with small business systems from the likes of Panasonic, Mitel, and NEC.

Toshiba had been losing some of its pull in the industry, it was still a shocking decision considering that the company has about a 3% market share in the U.S.

Fast forward to May ’17 and we learn that Mitel is picking up the parts from the Toshiba telecommunications business.

A little about Mitel:  They are based in Canada (Ottawa) and have annual revenues of about $850 million.

On May 3rd Mitel announced Q1 financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2017.

Mitel announced they too are taking proactive cost reduction actions to align its operating expenses with its current business needs. This includes a workforce reduction of approximately 10% expected to be completed between now and the end of the year.

Financial Highlights from Continuing Operations

  Q1 2016
in millions
(except per share data)		 Q1 2017   Historical
Currency
GAAP Revenues $223.1   $233.0
GAAP Net Income (Loss) ($19.7)   ($11.8)
Non-GAAP Net Income2 $10.9 $10.5
GAAP EPS – basic ($0.16)   ($0.10)

Mitel Business Highlights this quarter included:

  • Recurring cloud seats grew by 45,000 during the quarter and now stand at 588,000
  • Working with a large service provider, Mitel is transitioning 10,000 employees of a second large European-based auto manufacturer from premise to a cloud-based Unified Communications solution.
  • A Midwestern US-based furniture retailer with more than 65 locations and an on-line presence selected MiCloud Enterprise and MiCloud Contact Center to connect all locations, centralize answering, and manage their advanced contact center needs including callback in queue and multi-media requirements.  The system is all hosted by Mitel. 

Mitel, on Thursday May 11th signed a Memorandum of Understanding to transfer assets and support obligations, including existing inventory, from Toshiba to Mitel. The agreement also includes a transition of product and services agreements from Toshiba customers to Mitel.

Mitel expects to close on the Toshiba deal this summer.

Besides transferring their existing inventory, Mitel will also be transferring all of their service and maintenance contracts to Mitel, so that Toshiba customers continue to have support as they move forward.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Mitel made its last acquisition in 2015 with the purchase of cloud-based UC provider Mavenir. The vendor made a bid to buy Polycom last year, although the deal fell through.

Toshiba Shuts Down Telecom Division

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Interesting that Toshiba did not try to sell their Telecommunications division but simply decided to shut it down.   As the premise PBX market continues to shrink and as the Cloud telephony business ramps up, maybe there were just no buyers for the smaller players?

Founded in 1975, Toshiba Telecommunication Systems Division (TSD) was a division of Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. (TAIS) – a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation.

Headquartered in Irvine, California, TSD is a manufacturer of IP business telephone systems, designed for small to medium-sized businesses and larger enterprises with multiple locations. Its ‘Strata CIX IP’ business telephone systems and related applications are sold by a network of Authorized Toshiba Dealers throughout the United States and Latin America.

Dealers were informed via letter on March 21, 2017 that “Toshiba Corporation has deemed it necessary to wind-down its Telecommunication Systems Division (TSD) business starting immediately.” Toshiba has decided to shut down its Telecommunication System Division (TSD) and associated hosting platform services.

According to a memo from Brian Metherell, VP & GM of Toshiba America Information Systems, TSD:

“As part of its continuing global restructuring, Toshiba Corporate has deemed it necessary to wind-down our Telecommunication Systems Division (TSD) business starting immediately.

“Dealers can submit orders through May 22, 2017 subject to inventory availability and purchase order acceptance.”

Toshiba sales have been declining for some time and the company has become far less visible and innovative than many of its competitors. Toshiba made an excellent PBX that competed with small business systems from the likes of Panasonic, Mitel, and NEC.

Toshiba Canada also will be announcing the wind-down of its telecommunications business, and TSD will no longer be selling in Mexico.  TSD vowed to support dealers in all warranty and maintenance obligations to customers.

It is a surprise that a once dominate market continues to see contraction.

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)

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The UCaaS market today is comprised of pure-plays, network operators, cable MSOs, ISPs, system integrators, and traditional premises-based vendors. With a multitude of options, things can be confusing for businesses trying to find the right provider and service to fit their needs,” said Diane Myers, senior research director of VoIP, UC, and IMS for IHS Markit and author of the fourth quarter 2016 Analyst Insight report. “Today, as our report and the data indicate, the leader is BroadSoft, comprising the larger share of installed base seats running over its platform.”

In November 2016, BroadSoft announced it surpassed 15 million cloud UC lines deployed globally, – an industry leading milestone three times greater than the next nearest competitor. At the same time, BroadSoft market share for new cloud UC line shipments is double that of the next closest competitor, a key trend as BroadSoft expects the market for new cloud PBX/unified communications will surpass on-premise PBX/UC equipment shipments by 2020.

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)

PBX Market Share

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Check out how the things have changed in the Enterprise PBX landscape over the past 10 years.    In 2006 Avaya plus Nortel had 38% of the entire market.   Avaya, 10 years later, and after purchasing Nortel’s Enterprise group, is down to 17%!

Who is moving up?   Microsoft was not even on the 2006 chart… it now has 6%

Cisco, 10 years ago was only 15% and is now 35%

PBX Market Share

Now, 10 years later:

PBX Market Share

But this doesn’t tell the whole story.   Companies are now moving to the Cloud and UCaaS.   Check out our next Blog Post.

Infographic: Hosted PBX or On-Site?

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The PBX debate, simplified.

It’s an encouraging sign of progression when a company moves to an IP-PBX (private branch exchange) business phone system. The big question it has to ask itself then is whether to host the PBX solution on its own premises or leave it in the hands of the service provider. There are strong arguments for either option; it’s generally a case of which one is best suited to a particular company.

Irish Telecom created the infographic below that compares on-site PBX and hosted PBX side by side using a variety of key criteria. If you are a manager who likes to have full control over every aspect of the business, and if you have an abundance of resources, hosting the solution yourself is usually the better choice. You can tailor the solution exactly the way you want it and expand it in accordance with your company’s growth. It is also cheaper to manage on-site PBX on an ongoing basis.

However, hosted PBX is more advisable if you’re in charge of a small business, or if the business is in a transitional period. Leaving it up to your service provider will clear one task off your shoulders and allow you to concentrate more on other aspects of managing the business. Also, the service provider will have access to resources that you wouldn’t, while setup costs for hosted PBX are much lower than if you managed the solution yourself.

Before making a decision, weigh up all the pros and cons of each option and apply those arguments to where your company is at. This infographic is intended to be a fair, objective comparison between on-site PBX and hosted PBX by making several clear distinctions between the two options. Take a look below.

 

Session Manager Controls Calls

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The Avaya Aura Session Manager is the core of Avaya’s SIP-based architecture, unifying all Avaya UC services. Aura Session Manager integrates with Avaya’s Aura Communication Manager, media gateways, messaging services, session border controller, conferencing, contact center and more, creating a centralized infrastructure that helps lower the total cost of ownership and administration costs.

Avaya’s Aura Session Manager has the unique ability to allow enterprise-wide dial plans across multiple vendor PBX environments. It can create system wide network routing rules to route calls in a cost-efficient manner using least-cost routing methods, alternative routing, time-of-day routing, toll avoidance and more.

Session Manager is truly an enterprise product, as it can support up to 250,000 SIP users, 350,000 SIP devices, 300,000 dial patterns, 1,000 SIP domains and many more. It supports connectivity to Cisco, Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent and other third-party PBXs, making it flexible and easy to integrate with existing infrastructure.

With a tolerance of up to 1,000-millisecond (ms) round-trip delay — from the source to the destination and back — it is suitable for almost any network environment, even satellite connections, which typically fluctuate between 600 to 900 ms round-trip delay.

Enterprise PBX Market Continues Slide Despite Improving Economic Conditions

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Campbell, CALIFORNIA —Technology market research firm Infonetics Research, now part of IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), reported in 2015 that the global enterprise telephony and unified communications (UC) market closed down 4 percent in 2014, to $8.7 billion, as businesses continue to hold off new purchases and upgrades of PBX equipment despite improving worldwide economic conditions.  The trend appears to continue thru all of 2015 as well.

The overall market decline masks the health of the evolving UC applications segment, which jumped 20 percent in 2014, energized by the demand for tools to increase workforce productivity.

The data comes from Infonetics’ fourth quarter 2014 (4Q14) and year-end Enterprise Unified Communications Voice Equipment market share, size and forecast report, which tracks PBX phone systems, voice over IP gateways, UC applications and IP phones.

“The enterprise telephony market continues to be tough. Just as we see one area begin to improve, it’s offset by slowdowns in geographies or market segments. Underscoring the declines are not only slowing businesses purchases but also competitive pricing, which has created unpredictable swings,” said Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics Research, now part of IHS. “The move to the cloud is having an impact in certain markets, particularly North America.”
MORE ENTERPRISE TELEPHONY MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

  • Globally, PBX revenue, including TDM (time-division multiplexing) and IP PBXs, dropped 6 percent in 2014
  • Vendors remain in a battle to gain customers and hold onto existing ones as enterprises migrate to IP and UC solutions: In 2014, the top four PBX revenue market share leaders were, in alphabetical order, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel and NEC
  • Microsoft continues to see strong sales on the UC front, solidifying its position atop the unified communications market share leaderboard

Mitel announces definitive agreement to acquire Polycom

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Polycom logoCombines global technology leaders to create a complete communications and collaboration portfolio and an enhanced ability to deliver profitable growth

  • Creates new $2.5 billion revenue company with scale and differentiated portfolio to expand in evolving enterprise communications market
  • Delivers attractive value for Mitel and Polycom’s shareholders with significant operating leverage and synergy opportunities
  • Polycom brand to be retained
  • Results in a significant reduction in net debt leverage ratio
  • Transaction expected to be accretive to Mitel in 2017 

OTTAWA and SAN JOSE, Calif., April 15, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Mitel (Nasdaq:MITL) (TSX:MNW) and Polycom(Nasdaq:PLCM), today announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement in which Mitel will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Polycom common stock in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $1.96 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Polycom stockholders will be entitled to $3.12 in cash and 1.31 Mitel common shares for each share of Polycom common stock, or $13.68 based on the closing price of a Mitel common share on April 13, 2016. The transaction represented a 22% premium to Polycom shareholders based on Mitel’s and Polycom’s “unaffected” share prices as of April 5, 2016 and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2016, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

New company with shared vision for seamless communications and collaboration

The combined company will be headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, and will operate under the Mitel name while maintaining Polycom’s strong global brand. Richard McBee, Mitel’s Chief Executive Officer will lead the combined organization. Steve Spooner, Mitel’s Chief Financial Officer, will also continue in that role. Once merged, the combined company will have a global workforce of approximately 7,700 employees.

“Mitel has a simple vision – to provide seamless communications and collaboration to customers. To bring that vision to life we are methodically putting the puzzle pieces in place to provide a seamless customer experience across any device and any environment,” said Mitel CEO Rich McBee. “Polycom is one of the most respected brands in the world and is synonymous with the high quality and innovative conference and video capabilities that are now the norm of everyday collaboration. Together with industry-leading voice communications from Mitel, the combined company will have the talent and technology needed to truly deliver integrated solutions to businesses and service providers across enterprise, mobile and cloud environments.”

“Together, Polycom and Mitel expect to drive meaningful value for our shareholders, customers, partners and employees around the world,” said Peter Leav, President and CEO of Polycom. “We look forward to working closely with the Mitel team to ensure a smooth transition and continued innovation to bring the workplace of the future to our customers.”

Global scale and strategic scope provide key customer benefits

The combined global company will offer customers an integrated technology experience supported by an impressive ecosystem of partners. Key market positions include:

  • #1 in business cloud communications (i)
  • #1 in IP/PBX extensions in Europe (ii)
  • #1 in conference phones (iii)
  • #1 in Open SIP sets (iv)
  • #2 in video conferencing (v)
  • #2 in installed audio (vi)
  • Installed customer base in more than 82% of Fortune 500 companies
  • Deep product integration with Microsoft solutions
  • Mobile deployments in 47 of the world’s top 50 economies
  • Combined portfolio of more than 2,100 patents and more than 500 patents pending
  • Global presence across five continents with approximately 7,700 employees worldwide

Enhanced platform expected to deliver profitable growth with opportunities for synergies and significant debt deleveraging

The combined company will have a significantly larger financial platform with the scope, scale and operating leverage needed to strategically expand in an actively evolving market.

Transaction Details

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year, subject to stockholder approval by Polycom and Mitel, receipt of regulatory approval in certain jurisdictions and other customary closing conditions. Following the closing of the transaction, former Polycom shareholders are expected to hold approximately 60% and current Mitel shareholders are expected to hold approximately 40% of the outstanding Mitel common shares.

Source:  Mitel Website

Avaya Marks a Decade as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Corporate Telephony

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Old Phone 2Avaya, a global leader in business communications systems, soft-ware and services, today announced it has reached one full decade as a Leader in Gartner Magic Quad-rant for Corporate Telephony with the most recent report.

The 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Corporate Telephony report notes that the “market is evolving from a focus on innovation in proprietary hardware to use of commodity hardware and standards-based software. While most telephony solutions shipping today are Internet Protocol (IP)-enabled or IP-PBX solutions, the associated endpoints are a mix of time division multiplexing (TDM) and IP.”

Avaya has fully embraced these trends by offering telephony as both a fully virtualized solution for customer-preferred servers and in an appliance model on commodity servers optimized for Avaya. In terms of end points, Avaya uniquely offers TDM and IP enabled end-points for H.323 and SIP as well as a comprehensive client for Windows, Android and iOS devices.

When it comes to purchasing new or upgrading systems, Gartner recommends that “decision criteria for corporate telephony platforms should focus on high-availability, scalable solutions, which support Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), desktop and softphone functionality, and the ability to integrate with enterprise IT applications while delivering toll-grade voice quality.”

Avaya’s standards-based (SIP) telephony software delivers high quality voice capabilities that can be seamlessly extended to and accessed from desktop phones, softphones and mobile devices. Avaya Aura® Communication Manager, the company’s flagship telephony and unified communications technology for enterprises, supports some of the world’s largest contact centers, global businesses, and highly critical emergency communications operations.

With the acquisition of Esna earlier this year, Avaya now enables workers to access communications from inside browser-based applications such as Salesforce, Google for Work, Microsoft 365 and others, eliminating the need for them to move in and out of different applications and thus streamlining work streams and display screens. Avaya Engagement Development Platform enables developers to use a simple tool to tightly integrate communications into business processes and contextual data to further streamline workflows and increase productivity.

Quotes
“The expectation of simplicity, quality and speed of implementation for telephony is higher than any other technology. It’s been a driving factor in everything we do even as business communications technologies grew into multimedia applications over any device. We continue to set new benchmarks in developing and delivering the communications experience that engages the world’s businesses.”
Gary E. Barnett, SVP and GM, Avaya Engagement Solutions

Lync is now Skype for Business

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Old Phone 1If you already use Skype to communicate with friends and family at home, you’ll appreciate the power and familiarity of Skype for Business where it’s easy to find and connect with co-workers. And you can use the devices you already have (iPhone, etc.) to reach business contacts through an “enterprise grade”, secure, IT-managed platform. If you’re already using Lync at your office, you’ll recognize all of the features you already use but in a new interface with simplified controls and some good new additions:

Call from Skype for Business using your desk phone for audio

If you have a PBX (Private Branch Exchange) desk phone and your IT department has configured it to work with Skype for Business you can search for people in your organization and place calls to them within the Skype for Business user interface, while audio for the call flows through your standard desk (PBX) phone. You can also place calls from the Skype for Business client using any phone near you (like your mobile, home, or hotel phone). The person you’re calling sees your phone number as though you were calling from your company’s main phone number.

When you make a Skype for Business call with audio routed through your desk phone, you also get:

  • IM—so you can do a quick copy/paste of a URL you want to share (as an example)
  • Desktop and app sharing—so you can easily show and tell, work through problems, or explain stuff with pictures
  • Attachments—send files to the other person without leaving Skype for Business

Rate My Call

Kind of a cool feature called “Rate My Call” lets Skype for Business Server administrators collect call data, access standard reports, and export raw data for further analysis. Users are prompted to take a survey after completing a call.
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First there was Skype, a popular app for instant messaging, video chat, and voice calls. Then Microsoft bought the company in 2011, continuing to offer it as a consumer product along with Lync as a business application. But last year Microsoft announced it would drop Lync in favor of Skype for Business, which would combine features of both Lync and Skype.

Today, some people are confused with what is actually available and how it works. There are two Skype services (free and paid and online or on-premises versions). There are two client types available as well.

Cores:

Skype for Business Server 2015: This on-premises server provides IM, presence, peer-to-peer VoIP and video, conferencing, enterprise voice, and telephone-system (PSTN) connectivity.

Skype for Business Online: This service is on line and bundled within Microsoft Cloud or Office 365.  It provides IM, presence, peer-to-peer VoIP and video, and conferencing. It does not provide enterprise voice or PSTN connectivity, but these features are in development.

Clients:

Skype for Business: This client replaces the Lync client as part of the Office suite. It works with either version of Skype and on almost all iOS and Android phones.

Skype: This client is available for consumer download, providing free service for personal use. Its features are similar to those of Skype for Business but usually are more limited in scope.

Pretty cool stuff…  Microsoft seems to finally be consolidating their story and solution to Enterprise voice and communication.  As a result you will likely see more selling to the corporate IT team in your company with Microsoft pointing out these selling points:

  • Online meetings, messaging, calls, video, and sharing with up to 250 people.
  • Find anyone in your company and schedule meetings in Outlook.
  • Enterprise-grade security and management of employee accounts.
  • As low as$2.00 user/month