Nortel

The IP-PBX Energy Wars...

August 4, 2008

So today I get a new report from the Tolly Group stating that the ShoreTel Unified Communications system is significantly more energy efficient than the Cisco Unified Communications Manager. ShoreTel apparently topped Cisco in using less energy to drive VoIP communications in specific large, medium and small enterprise-class scenarios.

This energy usage comparison reminded me of Nortel's "The 'Nortel' Tax Relief Plan", which aims to "stop paying the 'Cisco Energy Tax' and save up to 40%". Tony Rybczynski who works for Nortel and writes a TMCNet blog called The HyperConnected Enterprise sparked some controversy with some of his blog posts promoting the fact that Nortel is more efficient than Cisco. He even cites one customer that put a stop order on a $2 million dollar Cisco order once they did the energy efficiency calculations.

Is that what it's come down to?

Posted in Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, SIP, ShoreTel, TMCnet, VoIP

Digium AsteriskNOW News and more...

August 25, 2008

As I hinted last week, I would have some "interesting" news to tell after my visit to Digium's brand new headquarters along with colleagues Greg Galitzine and Dave Rodriguez. Before I get into the MAJOR news being made by Digium, let me cover what else I learned on my trip. It had been 3 years since I last visited Digium down in Huntville, Alabama.

After getting a grand tour of the new Digium building we sat down in a state-of-art boardroom complete with a high-end Polycom IP conferencing unit, theater lighting, and a projector with motorized retractable screen. The boardroom was named the Mark C. Smith Boardroom to honor Mark Smith, who was the founder and chief executive officer of ADTRAN and Mark Spencer's mentor.

Posted in Asterisk, Cisco, Nortel, Polycom, TMCnet, VoIP

trixbox Pro 2.0 review

September 4, 2008

Fonality is one of the premiere providers of Asterisk-based IP-PBX solutions. Fonality offers three products: PBXtra, trixbox CE (community edition), and trixbox Pro (commercial/reseller edition). trixbox Pro. which is their commercial edition runs on Fonality's "hardened" PBXtra technology, which Fonality claims has 5 thousand installations and over 325 million calls to date. trixbox Pro is a hybrid-hosted solution, which means you get 24/7 monitoring, phone mobility with no NAT traversal issues, and automatic software updates.

Posted in Asterisk, Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, Polycom, Reviews, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Nortel cuts jobs and lowers forecast

November 10, 2008

Nortel plans a major restructuring and another round of job cuts.

From Fortune:

The Toronto networking equipment giant said Monday it would trim 1,300 jobs on top 1,200 cuts previously announced. Nortel had 32,550 employees at the end of 2007.

The company also said four top executives, including its head of sales and its chief technology officer, would leave at year-end.

The news comes as Nortel posted third quarter earnings that met lowered targets. The company warned, however, that 2008 sales would fall 4% -- at the lower end of its previous guidance of 2% to 4%.

It's too bad Nortel is a Canadian company or they could have been added to the $700+ billion U.S. bailout package.

Posted in Nortel, TMCnet, VoIP

Nortel uses Unreal Engine and Lands Lenovo as a customer of web.alive

January 8, 2009

Apparently, my skepticism over Nortel web.alive was lost on Lenovo since Nortel and Lenovo today announced the first-ever customer to its web.alive Virtual World Application. Lenovo uses web.alive to let shoppers browse, demo and interact with other shoppers and Lenovo Staff in real-time 3D.

In addition, Nortel has licensed the Unreal gaming Engine for web.alive Engine which they claim will create more realistic, interactive 3D Environment for Web 3.0 Collaboration, Training and Commerce. Wow, I used to play Unreal on my old PC. If Nortel web.alive uses the Unreal Engine and looks anything like the video game I used to play, then maybe I'll retract some of my skepticism.

Posted in Home Entertainment, Nortel, TMCnet, Video Games & Gaming

Avaya acquires Nortel rumors

January 14, 2009

With today's news of Nortel's potential bankruptcy flying, my fellow TMC team members have been trading emails back-and-forth about Nortel's future. (See also Rich's overview).

Brendan Read had an interesting take that I thought I'd share:

This could cause a political firestorm in Canada: Nortel being a Canadian company, Avaya being American, expected more job losses from consolidation, Stephen Harper's Conservative minority government being propped up by the center-left parties including a resurgent Liberal party under its US-educated new leader Michael Ignatieff, and the bulk of Nortel's jobs being in the battleground province of Ontario.

Parliament resumes later this month with a new budget--and his deal could add enough explosives to the mix to ignite another election. Harper is a superb political gameplayer which is why he stopped the sale of the firm that made the Canadarm to an American outfit.

He then pointed to an Industry Week article where the sale was blocked by the Canadian government.

So is an Avaya acquisition of Nortel in the works?

Posted in Avaya, Nortel, TMCnet, Technology and Science, Unified Communications

Nortel Fights On

January 15, 2009

Nortel - will they or won't they file for bankruptcy? Will they be chopped up into pieces and sold off? All the news these past few months leading to a crescendo of news yesterday stating Nortel is planning to file for bankruptcy. Certainly, all the rumors didn't help their stock any.

Posted in Avaya, Nortel, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

Avaya Buys Nortel

September 14, 2009

Avaya has agreed to purchase Nortel's enterprise business for $900 million, which is much larger than the $475 million 'stalk horse' bid put out last month by Avaya. As part of the deal, Nortel will sell the assets of the Enterprise Solutions Business, and shares of Nortel Government Solutions and DiamondWare to Avaya. Avaya will pay out US$900 Million in cash to Nortel, with an additional pool of US$15 Million Reserved for an Employee Retention Program.

But the bid is subject to approval. Both Canadian and U.S.

Posted in Avaya, Nortel, TMCnet, VoIP

Avaya Reveals Roadmap for Nortel Enterprise Assets at ITEXPO

January 6, 2010

Rich Tehrani and I are both excited to hear the future roadmap Avaya has in store for Nortel's enterprise assets that Avaya recently acquired. Will Avaya slowly phase out these Nortel enterprise products, continue the product line with the Avaya brand, integrate best-of-breed technologies from Avaya and Nortel and offer new SMB products? The questions are endless. IT managers, CTOs, MIS managers, etc.

Posted in Avaya, ITEXPO, Nortel, TMCnet, VoIP

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