May 28th, 2007
Avaya said to be buyout candidate: will Asterisk benefit?
Avaya, one of the leading players in IP Telephony hardware, solutions and consulting- may be positioning itself for a sale.
The New York Times reports that Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Avaya is drawing interest from competitors Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks- in addition to private equity firm Silver Lake Partners.
Fuel for this buzz has gone on since Friday, when Avaya abrubtly cancelled an analyst call scheduled for this Thursday. No new date was offered. Plus, as the NYT notes, a
Merrill Lynch recently named Avaya as an ideal buyout candidate, citing its cash flow, lack of debt and rising profit margins.
If Cisco or Nortel land this company, there will be fewer higher end managed VoIP solutions. In that case, look for enhanced pricing and service pressures from competitive lower-cost managed Asterisk solutions.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
