Last week I wasn't overly surprised by the latest news that Nortel is thinking of selling its enterprise division and that Avaya and Siemens Enterprise Communications number among the interested buyers. After all, talk about a buyout from Avaya, Microsoft, IBM, Aastra, or others have been swirling around for some time now. Here's a lengthy article exploring the relative merits of Cisco acquiring Nortel...written almost five years ago!Instead, the Nortel news that captured my imagination last week was the merger of Applinet Plc and Unified Group, two UK resellers whose combined company is now called Proximity Communications. Proximity proudly markets itself as "the largest exclusive Nortel partner in the United Kingdom with the largest pool of Nortel accredited resources." It's a great example of Nortel partners sticking by the company thick or thin...and it's hard to imagine the situation getting any thinner.
But why shouldn't a Nortel reseller remain loyal? One of the worst-case scenarios is that the company's enterprise voice division is sold off to a direct competitor that transitions the Nortel communications gear to its own systems and software. In such a scenario Nortel PBXs, handsets, gateways, messaging, mobility, and unified communications software would not just suddenly vanish from the earth, whisked away like Dorothy's farmhouse atop a tornado. It would remain in place for years to come and resellers' expertise in all things Nortel would be instrumental in first maintaining the systems and transitioning them to other platforms.
This is among the reasons why analyst predictions that resellers would flee from Nortel like rats from a sinking ship have not come to pass. Instead, Nortel reseller Shared Technologies has recently developed Avaya expertise...but has not completely abandoned Nortel in the process. Earlier this month I met with one and heard of two other Nortel resellers at Alcatel-Forum. They are adding Alcatel-Lucent voice gear to their portfolios without severing existing ties to Nortel.
The question remains, how seriously will VARs actively sell Nortel converged- and unified communications solutions? It makes sound business sense for the partner to maintain its ability to support Nortel systems, but Nortel needs much more than this. Nortel needs partners making new deals and driving new revenue through new systems sales. To this end Nortel has introduced a new set of incentives it hopes will spur channel sales. Higher margins for loyal resellers might work in the near term, but even the sweetest of incentives will not be able to substitute for Nortel getting its house back in order. Whether the enterprise group is ultimately spun off or kept in the Nortel fold, corporate stability, increased R&D spend, and the introduction of compelling new products will be the best incentives Nortel can provide its resellers and customers.
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