Executive Summary
By now we know that Avaya has purchased Nortel Enterprise, and that a roadmap for the Nortel product line was announced on January 19, 2010. The announcement was broad and deep. With an estimated 80M Nortel phones deployed worldwide, almost every enterprise user is affected in some way.
At a high level, Nortel products will remain in effect through the end of 2010 and into 2011. Avaya is encouraging all Nortel users to upgrade to the latest version of the products they own, and you will be able to opt to keep your Nortel infrastructure for up to 6 years (2017) if you take up the Avaya offer for extended support. Avaya also encourages adoption of Avaya Aura layering technology as part of your short term strategy. (For a complete explanation of what this "layering" technology is, see the section on "Layering Technology" near the end of this article.
The Nortel products that will retire include CS1000; BCM Series; CallPilot; Contact Center, Avaya Call Center Express; TM, UM, other products; UC products--MCS 5100, Nortel OCS Server. Those that will remain include Agile Communications Environment (ACE); CS 2100; Nortel data products; Nortel security products.
Avaya/Nortel will transition from direct delivery to a partner-delivered model, and Avaya will shorten warranties from 12 months to three months on all new purchases.
These announcements clearly indicate an end-of-sale to most Nortel products as we know it today. The announcement forces all Nortel users to take a look at the current infrastructure to enhance the current environment, transition to the next-gen product line, integrate disparate systems, and consider what else is available in the marketplace.
There are several choices ahead:
(1) you can do nothing
(2) get your current Nortel infrastructure up on the latest release
(3) sign the extended maintenance agreement to keep your current product up through 2017
(4) add the Avaya Aura layering technology in the short term as an initial step in your path towards migrating your entire platform towards an Avaya-based technology platform, or
(5) do your due diligence.
I highly recommend you do your due diligence for several key reasons:
* to protect your environment and avoid the risk of end of life,
* to see what technologies are available and could be a possible "fit" for your organization,
* to develop a plan for moving forward,
* to see what kinds of layering technologies are available, and
* to know the TCO of a Nortel-Avaya upgrade and competitive systems.
You will need to take into consideration Avaya’s current junk bond status and the end of life issues associated with a Telecom product's retirement.
A Deep Dive Needs Assessment Is In Order
A Needs Assessment will help you do several things:
* manage costs for current Nortel infrastructure;
* consider costs, savings, managed costs;
* minimize product End of Life and risks to your organization;
* do your due diligence to determine best "fit" for your organization;
* help facilitate funding for product replacement;
* stay competitive by leveraging evolving market technology (which is available in IP only); and
* transition the organization to VoIP/UC.
The Needs Assessment will assist by comparing and exploring different scenarios, considering costs, logistics, and risks with each. You will assess the current infrastructure for VoIP-readiness and demo the latest available technology and see the possible "fit" for your organization.
As part of the Needs Assessment, you will:
* consider Avaya Aura and other manufacturers' layering technology as a possible first step.
* look for ways of reducing costs to help fund the new capital investment via a Telecom Optimization and Carrier Procurement.
* consider Hosted and Managed Models as a possible pay-as-you-go model with low risk.
* develop a pro-forma IP telephony specification and Request For Information to obtain vendor Best Order of Magnitude costs, and finally
* develop a detailed matrix comparing different scenarios based on the results and assigning values to costs, logistics, and risks with each.
The Assessment will help you develop your own roadmap, customized for your environment and dynamics. The end result: you will be able to make a thorough, more well informed decision for your organization, and you will have available a strategic, step-by-step process for moving forward to get to an informed, low risk, best vendor, best technology, best cost decision.
Introduction
By now we know that Avaya has purchased Nortel Enterprise, and that a roadmap for the Nortel product line was announced on January 19, 2010. Note that this was a roadmap announcement and not an announcement that was very specific to individual products.
The announcement involves all Nortel Enterprise products and affects both Nortel and Avaya customers alike. In summary:
* The announcement indicates that most of the Nortel products will remain (at least for the near term), and all current Nortel and Avaya UC products are available for sale today.
* Avaya Aura will be a key core part of their strategy going forward. Avaya encourages customers to add Aura "on top" of their existing PBX environments for enhanced collaboration capabilities (note that some functionality from Nortel's products will be merged into Aura). Avaya Aura uses their Aura SIP Session Manager to centralize communications and applications integration in networks that use PBXs from multiple manufacturers.
The Avaya Announcement Specifics
Avaya has provided a clear roadmap for going forward, specifically:
* Avaya will develop "a couple" of more releases of Nortel's CS 1000 IP PBX. The long-term plan is for customers to transition to Avaya's Aura as the flagship product. Enterprises using older Nortel PBXs are encouraged to upgrade to a more recent software level for support reasons,
* All Small to Medium Enterprises (SME) will be blended under the Avaya IP Office "banner". IP Office will now be the flagship for Small to Medium Enterprises and branch offices. Avaya will continue to sell IP Office, Integral 5, Nortel's BCM, Nortel Norstar, and Nortel Software Communication System (SCS); furthermore, Avaya has stated that BCM will be sold "well into 2011", and some BCMs will be supported until 2017.
* Avaya plans to merge its and Nortel's contact center capabilities to create the "Avaya Next-Generation Contact Center" (NGCC). NGCC's first release has been accelerated to July 2010 and will support the CS 1000, Communication Manager and Aura platforms. Nortel's CC7 product will be adopted for its mid-size contact-center customers (with around 1,000 agents) and enhanced to provide additional functionality in R8 (CC8 will be the first release of NGCC),
* Avaya's Call Center Elite product will be the flagship for enterprise customers. Avaya will work to add the fault tolerance of its Call Center Elite into CC8 to create one contact center solution that will scale from mid-size to enterprise-size
* Nortel's data products will survive and will be a key part of the Avaya data strategy, and include Ethernet switching portfolio, routers, VPN appliances, wireless networking, access control, and unified management solutions.
(Avaya Announcement source: www.thevoicereport.com).
These are very significant announcements and affect all Nortel-base enterprise users. The table below summarizes the announcements and products with end-of sale in the next 12-18 months:
Table: Avaya-Nortel Products--End of Sale (12-18 months)
The table is significant, and indicates there will be end-of-sale to those Nortel products stated above. Now is the time to consider how it will affect your own enterprise environment.
Some of the Nortel products will continue, and in my opinion, part of the purchase by Avaya was to strategically employ Nortel product lines that could complement the Avaya product line. Continuing products include:
Table: Products Surviving after 12-18 months
There were also significant announcements for service and distribution:
* Support--Any purchase made will be supported at least through 2017--Avaya's support policies provide up to six years of support via an optional extended support. This will follow the end-of-sale date (2011 at the earliest) for any product.
* Service--Avaya/Nortel will transition from direct delivery to a partner-delivered model.
* Warranty--Avaya will shorten warranties from 12 months to three months on all new purchases.
* Software support contracts--Avaya will require customers to purchase software support contracts for new purchases beginning July 1 (a change for Nortel customers used to paying a flat fee per support case)
* Contracts--Existing contracts won't need to be renegotiated, and starting July 1 all new contracts will be on the "annuity" model. Note that the same shift will be made for Avaya customers currently buying time & materials (T&M) support from Avaya.
* Channel partners--Avaya's channel partners can either resell Avaya software support contracts or white-label them. Nortel's channel partners will receive sales and technical training on Avaya products before they can sell or maintain them.
In my opinion, this announcement is the best option Nortel users could have hoped for. Instead of Nortel being sold for parts, the successor, Avaya, has provided a path/roadmap for migration to the Nortel platform and has provided time for its enterprise users and VARs to transition to the newer, next-gen platforms.
These announcements clearly indicate an end-of-sale to most Nortel products as we know it today. As noted, it affects close to 80M end points/desktops worldwide. Make no mistake, the acquisition is VERY significant, clearly the most significant industry acquisition in 2009 and the most closely watched, and will continue to be so in 2010-2011 time frames.
My Observations
Based on numerous in-depth discussions with Avaya management and specialists, I have found both Avaya and Nortel staff alike enthusiastic regarding the acquisition. Nortel employees have a job, career, opportunity, and there is a strong story to tell. In addition, Aura will provide a path for migration from Nortel to Avaya over the long haul--it's my understanding that greenfield customer opportunities will be shown the Avaya platform.
In my opinion, the announcement forces all Nortel users to take a look at their current infrastructure to:
* Enhance the current environment
* Transition to the Next-Gen product line
* Integrate disparate systems
* Consider what else is available in the marketplace
The good news is that the transition will buy you, the enterprise user, a little time and allow you the opportunity to see what is available from Avaya and other manufacturers, and look for ways to help fund a new system. This should not, by any means, give you a sense of "wait and see" or non-urgency relative to looking at your environment and choices available. There are several reasons why you should not delay in beginning your due diligence:
* The Nortel and Avaya cultures are different, and in my opinion, over time you will see the Avaya culture win out and the policies associated with the new manufacturer will prevail.
* Nortel products will be at end-of-sale shortly, based on the announcement, and you want to determine the choices available in the market, and competitive offerings available.
* Avaya's Aura layering technology is only one of the solutions out there, and other manufacturers offer a similar technology, giving you choices in planning your strategy.
The timeline below indicates the support timeline Avaya has announced as a part of their product roadmap. It blends with the six-year, 2017 model if you decide to go that route.
Choices Ahead
There are several choices ahead--you can:
1. Do nothing (strongly NOT recommended)
2. Get your current Nortel infrastructure up on the latest release
3. Sign the extended maintenance agreement to keep your current product up through 2017
4. Add the Avaya Aura layering technology in the short term as an initial step in your path towards migrating your entire platform towards an Avaya-based technology platform
5. Do your due diligence.
If I were Avaya, I would like to see you focus on numbers 2, 3, and 4 above. I also expect Avaya to anticipate (and I highly recommend) that enterprise users will be doing their due diligence in order to make the best, most informed decision possible.
This is what to expect over the next 6-10 months:
1. End-of-sale and migration announcements from Avaya for the Nortel product lines.
2. A plethora of offerings from Avaya and their competitors.
3. Layering technology offerings from Avaya and other manufacturers.
4. Rumors—possibly true, possibly not—about plans for Avaya to go public.
Although 6-10 months sounds a ways away, it is in fact right around the corner, and you need to set in motion an action plan now for consideration of the end-of-sale and thus end-of-life announcements and competitive offers that will be available. One of the choices available is to sign an extended maintenance agreement. Although this at first sounds favorable, you need to consider the following:
* Annual cost of such services and financial obligation for the 6 year term;
* What the service covers (and does not cover);
* How signing such will lock you in to one vendor (Avaya in this case) for 6 years;
* How it will limit your choices when considering what the market, at large, has to offer.
There are many choices out there, and making the right one for you and your organization based on technology and applications, services, organizational "fit" with your own, and total cost to your enterprise is a critical one. Telecommunications is commonly the 3rd-5th highest expense of any organization, and thus a significant decision to you and your organization.
It is your right and responsibility as an enterprise Telecom decision-maker to determine what is available in the marketplace. There are many new technologies and offerings available, and based on the fact that your investment will cover the next 7-10 years, you owe it to yourself and your organization to consider all options available that the market has to offer. This is an exciting time to be a part of the Telecom-IT market, and you can help facilitate significant contributions for your end-user community if the "homework" and due diligence are done.
In a recent Voice Report Webinar survey of over 320 attendees, over 50% agreed that doing their due diligence was best for their organization. In the end you could end up with an Avaya solution or one from another manufacturer--and by following the due diligence process, you will know that the homework has been done, and you have made an informed decision.
Doing Your Due Diligence Now
So why should your do your due diligence and why now? There are several key reasons:
* You need to protect your environment from the risk of product end-of-life to you and your organization and the associated spill-over effects. There are risks associated with end-of-life of any manufacturer's product, and these are critical as a part of your enterprise strategy (see below).
* You want to see what new technologies are available and see how these technologies can be a possible "fit" for your organization in the short and longer term. We are on the cusp of migrating and evolving to newer, Next-Gen technologies, and you need to evaluate the offerings being made available. You need to learn about the latest Next-Gen products and technology and determine how these fit in with your organization's short and long term needs and wants.
* You need to develop, even if you do not have any capital, a plan for moving forward towards your new environment.
* You want to see what the market has to offer with regards to layering technologies. There are layering technologies offered by Avaya and other manufacturers, including Aastra, Cisco, Interactive Intelligence, Siemens, ShoreTel, Mitel, and NEC among others,
* You need to know the total cost of ownership of a Nortel-to-Avaya upgrade over the next 7 years (whether you have budget money for 2010-11 or not) and other competitive systems,
End of Life Issues
For those systems that are being retired (and we now know Nortel products will be), a significant pattern unfolds. These patterns only give the enterprise owner about another 18-36 months before real risks begin to set in. They include:
* Manufacturer Discontinuance of Systems in Place
--Spare parts are refurbished and are increasingly becoming less available, maintenance contract support may be an issue, costs may be a major issue.
* Capacity Issues with Current Systems and Associated Costs
--Systems at capacity require additional hardware investment, potentially by as much as 40%
* Consumer-Driven Capabilities Moving into the Enterprise
--Reach-me-anytime, e-mail, IM/chat, presence, personal directories--all consumer driven technologies--are now available in the commercial space
* No Investment by Telecom Manufacturers in Traditional TDM Voice
--TDM, for all intents and purposes, is dead
* Systems Age (7 years or more as a baseline)
--A clear indication of the deterioration of support for parts and technicians. Expect manufacturer notices, spare parts unavailability, upgrade unavailability, and fewer trained technicians over time
* Risk of a Multi-Day Outage Increases
--The state of the systems poses greater risk to basic communications services--a single outage could last several days. How would your organization communicate in the event something like this happened? What risk(s) would this pose to the safety of the staff and community?
* Newer systems added onto older system to solve capacity issues
--Creates a more complex maintenance environment.
The Process
Take a holistic approach that covers key areas of your environment's business objectives and technology (I am sure you have heard the cliche, "Technology for the sake of technology is useless," and I am a total proponent of this statement). Unless there is a valid business reason and objective for employing the technology, then the deployment of such technology has no purpose or validity for your organization.
The steps include:
* Needs Assessment--Confirm / evaluate the incumbent data and voice networks and design and optimize for a VOIP/UC-centric model
--Commonly 2-3 months
* VOIP Systems Procurement--Procure the systems/network that will best serve the client via the Request For Proposal process
--Commonly 3-4 months depending on project size
* Project Management and Implementation--Coordinate and project manage the network for any changes, replacements to the current network
--Commonly 3-24 months depending on project size and number of sites
Note that by doing an Assessment and Procurement, a 5-7 month time frame should be allotted. This falls in line with the timeline of 6-10 months when you should expect end-of-sale announcements from Avaya.
The rest of this article will focus on the Needs Assessment, which will help facilitate the best choices and proof of concept for moving forward.
The Needs Assessment
The Needs Assessment sets the baseline for the entire project. The purpose of the Needs Assessment is to:
* Understand the current business and technology applications and growth plans, and how these areas may impact the needs, term, and timeline for deployment of a possible replacement VOIP-based Telephony system.
* Take a holistic view of the voice and data networks for a fully converged VOIP/UC environment and understand all infrastructure technologies in place. VOIP/UC is an application on the data network and all data rules and everything that the data environment "touches" now applies to the VOIP/UC. The network should also be considered in light of a 99.999% uptime requirement inherited from the traditional telephony model.
* Consider current VOIP, convergence, and Unified Communications offerings and trends in the market, and recommend areas to consider design criteria for the replacement telephony system and associated voice and data network. This will include plans for Quality of Service (QoS) and voice and video prioritization , VLANs (Virtual LANs), PoE (Power over Ethernet) requirements, UPS requirements in closets, low voltage CAT 5e/6 cabling to be used for VOIP, carrier diverse routing and redundancy to mirror a goal of 99.999% (five 9s), disaster recovery and business continuity considerations, any call center requirements, audio conferencing over IP, and Video over IP over the private data network.
Service Level Agreements (SLAs), network redundancy and resiliency, managed network offerings, network management tools, vendor reliability, contract terms, and vendor billing systems will also be of consideration.
The Needs Assessment should be a deep dive process that will help you arrive at a better, more informed solution in the end. The steps involved include the following:
1. Understand short- and long-term organizational business, technology, service and growth needs. Look at technology that can help transform your organization in the short and long term, and consider organizational and policy and procedure issues tied to those transforming technologies (i.e., mobility). The project and plan should have underlying themes, key points--including examples such as:
--One throat to choke--you may want to seek fewer vendors in order to manage possible finger-pointing among vendors and get to root cause and a solution quickly.
--Fewer servers--To implement all required and desirable applications in a redundant/resilient architecture, the total number of servers necessary to power some environments can be as many as 20 and as few as 4 depending on manufacturer and features/technologies purchased.
--WAN capability--voice, video, reliability: is the WAN redundant and resilient? Does it lend itself to a five 9s model? Does the carrier network have QoS enabled for voice and video traffic? Short and longer term needs?
--Growth requirements--What are your firm's growth requirements in short term (12-18 months) and longer term (3-4 years out)? How is that measured in terms of percentage growth of personnel and sites involved? (This percentage should be included in the specification growth requirements to be issued to the vendors).
--Wired and wireless requirements--what are the wired requirements for a department, building, campus, multiple facilities? Would wireless have any impact on the number of desktops necessary in the new environment?
--UC, UM requirements--what are the short and long term needs for Unified Messaging (integrating e-mail, faxes, and voice mail into one unified e-mail Inbox) and Unified Communications (UC) (IM/Chat, presence/friends lists, softphone, IP audio conferencing, IP videoconferencing, document sharing, Web collaboration)?
--Number of end points--hard and soft clients (softphones are slowly replacing some desktop phones as the main way of communicating--some of our clients are substituting as much as 10%-15% of the desk phones with softphones.
--Integration with legacy systems--consideration for leveraging layering technology and integrating seamlessly with legacy systems, providing a possible path for your organization.
--Mobile, remote workers--what are the trends associated with your organization and your need to tie mobile workers and remote workers with the rest of your organization? How can these possibly replace desktops and affect the total cost of the number of end points to be purchased?
--DR Functionality--how can the vendor provide Disaster Recovery and resiliency across services and geography? If a site fails, will the calls in progress be lost or continue as-usual as the system fails over to the DR server/site?
--Major trend areas for consideration--including all-software based solutions, virtualization, single communications platform for entire enterprise, and all-in-one solutions.
2. Assess the current infrastructure for VoIP-readiness and for budgetary purposes. Include all components of the network--all IP-PBX/UC components and infrastructure that need to become VoIP-ready; WAN upgrades; switches, routers; network management tools; closets/space, HVAC, electrical, UPSs; cabling requirements. Consider both one-time capital costs and recurring annual costs.
3. Compare and explore different scenarios. Consider costs, logistics, and risks with different scenarios. Different environments have different needs and urgencies, and create different dynamics in the environment. For example, your organization may have acquired a firm with a different WAN and different PBX manufacturer. There are likely different end-of-life issues associated with different PBX systems and therefore different risks associated with each.
Example: a client had end-of-life issues on two major PBX systems and the timing for such was concurrent with a near-term relocation of the primary PBX system as well as relocation of corporate headquarters within 18 months. This made choices interesting as well as complex, and we developed 9 different scenarios based on the strengths/weaknesses of the incumbent vendors, logistics involved in the PBX move, and risk associated with a move vs. a replacement technology. We then compared pricing models after receiving costs back from different vendors and reviewed all the material.
4. Determine the top 5 competitors--i.e., those that could provide a best "fit" for your organization's needs. Review D&B ratings and pull D&B reports for each for short- and longer-term solvency purposes
5. Develop a Request For Information and pro-forma specification--to obtain costs from the 5 select competitors for management approval. Request:
* Capital costs: Purchase and install and professional services
* Ongoing: Maintenance, software subscription, NOC services.
You can use this RFI for Best Order of Magnitude (BoM) and funding purposes. Avaya Aura and other manufacturer layering technologies should be considered, together with their payback/ROI. Extended support program costs should also be considered. Lastly, consider a holistic, 7-year TCO model to include all capital and ongoing costs--hosted and managed services and layering technology can be a part of this evaluation.
6. Look to ways to reduce costs on the carrier side and use these savings to help fund the project (audits, optimizations, carrier procurements). Perform a telecom optimization, procurement, and audit to reduce carrier costs, and utilize these to help fund the project via a Fair Market Value capital lease. Consider hosted and managed service options. See the section below for additional details.
7. Demo and interview vendors. Learn about the various product offerings and vendors' short- and longer-term technical and business strategies. Ask about the manufacturer's layering technology and its possible application for your organization. Consider transitional costs and logistics involved in matching to each of the scenarios considered. Consider vendor demo strengths and weaknesses relative to your environment.
Ask the manufacturers about an all-in-one solution, ability to offer technologies being sought, and which components are first vs. third party-provided, ability to license only what you need, and ability to grow without a fork-lift upgrade.
8. Develop a detailed matrix--including costs, risks, logistics. Be as detailed and deep as possible. Explore all elements involved. Consider the strengths and weaknesses of each of the scenarios and vendors classified within each scenario. The table below is a high level summary of areas that can be explored using the example in #3 above--your analysis will be specific to your own organization's needs.
Table: Summary of Needs Assessment - Costs, Risks, Effort
9. Finally, develop a general timeline for possible replacement based on funding or hosted and managed services or value components to reduce costs or to align costs with internal timing dependencies and fiscal year alignment.
Layering Technology
What is this layering technology everyone is talking about? Layering technology adds a "layer" of voice-centric technology for trunking, trunk routing, and applications to be implemented by a trunking/applications server(s). The technology adds features such as centralized SIP trunking, single dialing plan, reduced costs through trunk optimization, and the ability to add centralized Voice Mail and Unified Communications. Note the following:
* All of this can be added for a multi-site enterprise customer without changing out existing PBX systems or telephone end points. Some of the manufacturers provide seamless features down to the telephone set level, again, without any change in existing PBX and telephone endpoint infrastructure.
* The advantage here is to begin the migration from a legacy system (Nortel or any other manufacturer for that matter) to VoIP and UC utilizing the chosen manufacturer's platform without the capital investment of replacing all current installed Telecommunications equipment in the short term, no matter what the end-of-life factor is relative to the incumbent equipment.
* Some capital for this layering technology will be required, and most investments have an ROI of less than 18 months post deployment.
* Depending on what resident PBX equipment is in place, gateways are commonly implemented at the edge sites as part of the layering technology, to connect all sites seamlessly utilizing the new technology. Note that the layering technology can be used in a multi-manufacturer environment.
* Technology baseline used and ease of implementation will vary by manufacturer and should be evaluated.
It is important to note that introducing a given vendor's layering technology truly has the intent of being the first stages of moving to that vendor's full replacement technology platform. So take note that, even though there are short term benefits of utilizing this layering technology, this is also a baseline entre that provides longer-term cost and incumbent advantage for this manufacturer to be the vendor that replaces your infrastructure with their new one in the longer term. So consider not only the short term ROI for such a technology, but look out farther and determine the entire 7-10 year TCO model for replacing your infrastructure.
Ways To Reduce Costs
Look for ways to help facilitate and reduce ongoing costs as a part of the project. These reduced costs can have a direct impact helping to facilitate the capital replacement costs for a layered technology approach, or can reduce the cost for an entire replacement system. Some of these areas may be:
* Telecom Optimization--Rightsizing your bandwidth needs, considering newer, lower-cost technologies such as SIP trunking, and driving audio conferencing and videoconferencing over the data network to manage costs downward. This optimization and engineering can help reduce annual client costs by 15%-30%. By facilitating all voice services over the data network infrastructure, significant savings can be obtained.
* Telecom Carrier Procurement--If your carrier contracts are up for renewal in the next 8-15 months, then it is time to start looking at looking at your carrier environment. Carrier technologies change every 24-36 months and carriers historically drive price points down based on bandwidth (cost/Mb) and mileage (cost/mile). For example, MPLS technology manages costs down between 10% and 30% over legacy networks and is QoS capable for voice and video traffic.
* Telecom Audit--Telecom carriers historically overbill between 10-30%. This is a prime opportunity to perform such a study.
Consideration for Hosted and Managed Services
So what do you do if you don't have the funding available? Minimally you can document your environment and plan for moving forward. You can also consider hosted and managed services offered by some of the providers, as the manufacturer will provide you a "pay as you go model" for the contract period you desire. Communications as a Service (CaaS), as defined by Gartner Group, is IP Telephony that is located within a third-party data center and managed and owned by the third party. The assets are multitenant in terms of usage. Capital outlay here is minimal. Advantages here include:
* Minimized capital outlay
* Sign an agreement for a timeframe that fits within your timing needs
* Consider expanded offerings (hardware/software, carrier) depending on the vendor involved.
We recently found that one of the manufacturers is now selling up to 90% of all new systems as a managed services offering. In my opinion, this is reflective of the financial times we are in, and offers a means of relatively painless upgrades within the vendor's family fairly painlessly.
Summary and Conclusions
This article has summarized the Avaya-Nortel road map and has focused on the necessary steps of a Needs Assessment and Systems Procurement/RFP Process as part of the due diligence process. The steps and recommendations noted will take you one significant step towards simplifying and getting to the end result you are seeking in a complex world in which there is little available capital.
We are always available to discuss with you our approaches and value we provide to our clients. Feel free to call me anytime. We can brainstorm your organization's issues, challenges, and possible technologies you are seeking in the short and long term.
Stephen Leaden is President of Leaden Associates, Inc., an independent Telecommunications and IT consulting firm in business 19 years. Steve is a frequent speaker at VoiceCon and is a writer for NoJitter and contributor for The Voice Report. Steve is also a principal with TelecomUCTraining.com, a successor to BCR Training which provides independent Telecom training--he teaches two courses: Cost Control of Wired and Wireless Networks, Best Practices and Optimizing Enterprise Networks. Steve is Past president of the Society of Telecommunications Consultants, a national association that requires ethics and objectivity as a prerequisite for membership. Steve can be reached at (845) 496-6677 or via e-mail at [email protected] .
