HP Acquire 3Com

We see that HP has acquired 3COM and we think their respective product ranges are very complimentary, however it is now interesting to note that part of the 3COM portfolio is their VoIP product line the 3Com NBX and VCX IP PBX and handset lines. 3Com currently has less than 0.5 percent share of the total $16 billion enterprise telephony market, according to Dell’Oro Group. But that is still more than the zero share HP has, which up to now addressed the market through partnerships with Avaya and Microsoft, among others.

The prospect of a VoIP product line branded as HP and with the backing of the HP marketing might should be a very interesting prospect and some of the current VoIP providers will be sitting up and taking notice.

View the Press Release  here

Avaya Gets Nortel Enterprise Division

So after much speculation and jostling for position Avaya has signed agreements to purchase Nortel’s enterprise solutions business for $475 million USD a bargain even considering the current economic climate.

It will be interesting to see what happens as the two manufacturers share some common distribution for the dealer channel in Europe, in some cases this makes the acquisition easier but Avaya will need to be careful to ensure that one plus one does not end up equalling one. With care this should see Avaya being able to widen their sales reach right across Europe and beyond.

There should be some manufacturers who will be sitting up and taking notice such as Cisco, Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent as this new combined entity may push some of them off top spot in some European countries.

We wait to see if the Nortel name survives and what will be the consolidated product range in a few years time.

Who Will Get the Nortel Enterprise Division ?

We are seeing lots of rumours about who is going to buy the Enterprise division of Nortel – it seems Avaya is the favourite with Nokia Siemens Networks and GENBAND also interested and for sure there will be several other parties looking closely as the price will be very good on account of Nortel’s financial problems.

We are interested to see what happens should Avaya acquire Nortel, they have in the past bought SDX Business Systems in the UK and what was originally the Network Alchemy system became the IP Office which is the mainstay of the SME business sector for Avaya. They have also in the past purchased Tenovis in Germany but that was more a market share acquisition and that product range seemed to disappear.

If Avaya completes the acquisition then it will need to be smooth and they will have to ensure that customers have a migration path from existing Nortel products to Avaya product or else the competition will be all over them.