TD Securities analyst Chris Umiastowski headed down to the VoiceCon conference in Orlando recently, and came away impressed with Nortel’s enterprise communications prospects.
The crux of his optimism is based on Nortel’s “close partnership” with Microsoft - remember the joint venture they signed in mid-2006?
Here’s what Umiastowski had to say about it:
“Considering how important we believe it is to be tight with Microsoft, this relationship is valuable to Nortel. We realize that Microsoft is a long-term threat to PBX vendors because Microsoft could ultimately eliminate the need for a stand-alone PBX. Here are our thoughts on this matter:
• Nortel is no more or no less threatened by Microsoft compared to other PBX vendors, therefore it is best to partner with Microsoft to benefit from closer integration.
• If we are wrong, and Microsoft is not a threat (nobody believes this but bear with us), then why would any vendor fear a partnership with them? Again, this demonstrates to us that Nortel made the right choice.
• Nortel can use the Microsoft relationship to push more heavily into data products. Just look at the Secure Router 4134 for branch offices as a perfect example. Nortel has taken a basic branch router and incorporated something called a “mediation server” into it, which allows the router to speak directly to Microsoft’s OCS 2007 server for UC functions. Nortel is the only vendor to have done this, and is directly attacking Cisco’s ISR 3800 router.
If Lou D’Ambrosio, CEO of Avaya, is correct about 90% of employees working outside of the headquarters office, then a branch office router such as this could be a really, really important product for Nortel.
On the downside, Umiastowski was less than impressed with Nortel’s booth at the conference, suggesting that the company needs to spend more time “making sure demos are flawless and real”. He also said that senior voice engineers expressed concern about Nortel’s service.
Technorati Tags: Nortel, VoiceCon
