An Israeli website is reporting that Avaya is in talks to acquire Radvision, the Israel-based video conferencing vendor. According to the site, the proposed price is $200 million.
Avaya's direction in video has been unclear. The company hired one of the driving forces behind Cisco telepresence, who said in an interview with No Jitter that Avaya was likely to build its own video capabilities. Furthermore, at the recent Avaya partner conference in Las Vegas, Kevin Kennedy conceded that the video marketplace today is largely a Cisco-Polycom duopoly, and hinted that Avaya might not make a head-on attack on this market.
Clearly, a Radvision acquisition would signal that Avaya intends to make a more aggressive play for the enterprise video market. The $200 million price tag isn't huge, when compared with the early $1 billion that Avaya paid for Nortel Enterprise, but it's a large enough investment that it suggests Avaya plans to be more of a player in video.
The site reporting the potential acquisition story points out that Radvision took a hit when Cisco acquired Tandberg, since Cisco had previously been a major customer for Radvision as an OEM.
