When does an SMB product become an Enterprise product ? Avaya IP Office – SMB ? Enterprise ?

I have been in Telecom sales for 19 years. Some days it feels like 40 ! I’ve had exposure to, and once upon a time actively sold Nortel, and ShoreTel, and today sell Cisco and for the last 4 years the Avaya IP Office.

I suppose every manufacturer has overlapping product lines. Nortel has the BCM 50, 400, 450, and Communication Server. Cisco has UC500, UCME, UCM Business Edition, and UCM. Avaya has the IP Office, and Communication Manager.

There is unfortunately a lot of confusion in the market place with regards to overlapping product positioning.

When do you sell product A vs product B ?

The reality is, as time progresses, and technology advances, yesterday’s SMB product becomes tomorrow’s enterprise solution, and today’s enterprise solution becomes tomorrow’s bigger enterprise solution.

With Avaya’s recent announcement of IP Office release 5 these lines have clearly become blurred.
- The product can support upwards of 384 extensions.
- 40 voice mail ports
- support for up to 150 agent call center
- fairly robust call center capability and reporting
- IVR
- Full call recording through Contact Store
- Unified Messaging
- Extensive mobility capability
- SoftPhones
- 32 sites in a small (or not so small) community network
- Very easy administration
- And the BIGGIE – enterprise scale redundancy. WAN side redundancy

What is that ? Is that not an enterprise solution ? Have these lines become blurred ?

Why do I ask this question ?

I’m fairly often called to task, especially in a competitive Avaya situation, where Digitcom sells a customer an Avaya IP Office, and an alternate competitor sells Communication Manager. The competitor suggests that CM is an “enterprise product”. What does that mean ?

I understand that every customer situation is slightly different, so there is no formal rule book which states that “in this situation sell A, and in this situation sell B”. Every sale needs to be judged and assessed on its own merit and position. I do get that. My question is – what is it about Communication Manager that makes this product an “enterprise solution” ? I’m not looking to find out “how CM is different from IP Office”. That I know. What I want to figure out is – what does an “enterprise solution” mean ?

Any help in clarification is appreciated. Feel free to comment, or send me an email to jw@digitcom.ca

Jeff

Nortel’s Mess – Why would anybody want this ?

Quite the legacy Mike Zafirovski has left behind. Granted, he arrived into an already disheveled mostly broken Nortel, but, he took the job on with some major promises.

“I’ll fix it – trust me.” Three years and a Six Sigma later, he’s made a mess. He leaves with a crappy legacy and many many many millions of dollars in his pocket. People make mistakes. Zafirovski made many. His first mistake was getting on the sinking ship thinking he could save it. The reality is, he tried to fix the business, but the culture still prevailed.

Nortel was destined for failure before Mike Zafirovski stepped in – he was too love struck to see it.

It’s a culture of arrogance. The “we’re the best” culture of arrogance was so pervasive it actually continues even until today. The fact is – and I’m speaking from an enterprise perspective – Nortel’s products are poor. Granted, they did at one time build an amazing product. The Norstar and Option 11 were the best pieces of telecom equipment during their time. That changed, at least from my perspective, with their BCM, Succession, and Passport products.

I know many people will disagree with what I’m saying, but, most of those people have never seen the other side. For those who have, they’ll probably agree.

When Mike Zafirovski arrived, he believed the arrogance. I’m sure he didn’t arrive with the attitude – it probably took some time for him to start believing what he was told. The fact is just because Nortel made it doesn’t mean it worked well. In fact, it didn’t. BCM, Succession, Passport. Those are the products I’ve seen. They don’t work very well. Overpromise and under deliver.

I could go on and on about system trays, bad MSC cards, hardware and software issues, and a PATCH PATCH PATCH “there’s a patch for that” – patched attitude that prevails. Customers bought into the mess, and Nortel continued selling it.

The culture of arrogance was so pervasive that the people that worked there didn’t see it – at least not until they left. And then, and only then, did they see the other side. The WE ARE NORTEL and WE CAN”T DO WRONG because we’re Nortel attitude – that’s hard to fix.

Now, I’m trying to figure out why anybody would want to buy the enterprise business. What on earth do they think they’re going to get ? It will be MANY millions to buy. That’s a lot of money. How will somebody make that back?

Maybe somebody will buy Nortel and keep the products intact – and try and fix it. The BCM, Succession – it doesn’t need fixing, it needs gutting. The name “NORTEL” is damaged from the last six months of their public relations nightmare. But there are existing customers who would be looking for upgrades, software support, maintenance … maybe there’s some value in that.

Avaya has been rumored to be interested in purchasing Nortel’s enterprise business. What could they possibly see in it? It’s certainly not for the engineering – that they’ll gut. Rip and replace. While there are many issues Avaya would need to consider when looking at Nortel’s enterprise business, it should be noted that Avaya had
been doing well in the enterprise market, and been successful in convincing a growing number of Nortel customers to switch suppliers.

Is there enough maintenance and upgrade dollars available to make back heavy price tag ? Most good dealers have taken on a secondary, and now alternate primary product line. Does it mean that much to keep this out of Cisco’s hands? Can they make their money back? Are there that many customers left?

It’s possible, with the right attitude!

Discounts better then ever to upgrade your old Nortel system

There’s never been a better time to upgrade your old Nortel Norstar or Nortel BCM phone system to a new Avaya IP Office or Cisco UC500, or Cisco Unified Communication Manager Express system. Both manufacturers have promos extending until September which will provide for some significant credits toward trading in your old product.

Avaya’s promo – called “Beat Nortel” provides for a 35% discount on hardware if you are trading in an older Nortel Norstar, Nortel Option 11C or Nortel BCM phone system. This promo extends to the end of September 2009.

Cisco’s promo – called “TDM Escape” provides for a 30% discount on hardware if you are trading in an older Nortel Norstar, Option 11C, BCM, or Mitel phone system. This promo extends to September 2009.

These discounts started in January and Digitcom has sold more phone systems in the last 6 months then we have ever sold in our 19 year history. Customers are concerned about Nortel’s future, now more then ever, especially with Nortel’s latest divestiture announcements last Friday.

Give us a call – 416-783-7890

Jeff Wiener
(416) 783-7890
250 Rimrock Rd., Toronto, Canada
jw@digitcom.ca