Sorry to get all Hardy Boys with you on the blog title - I just couldn't resist. Here's the story: I was recently perusing the Inter-Tel product page and noticed that, curiously, the Inter-Tel 7000 is no longer listed. And though there's some info on the system on at least one of the company's European websites, the UK press was recently told this about the now combined entity's IP PBX systems lineup:
Sorry to get all Hardy Boys with you on the blog title - I just couldn't resist. Here's the story: I was recently perusing the Inter-Tel product page and noticed that, curiously, the Inter-Tel 7000 is no longer listed. And though there's some info on the system on at least one of the company's European websites, the UK press was recently told this about the now combined entity's IP PBX systems lineup:
the backbone of their product portfolio moving forward will be Inter-Tel's 5000 and the Mitel 3300 ICP platforms .... Mitel's IP phones will be supported across both 5000 and 3300 products.
Granted, I haven't really heard much from the company since the euphemistic "synergy realization" in the fall. But I'm getting the decided impression that the once ballyhooed Inter-Tel 7000 as an actively promoted product offering has gone the way of all flesh, so to speak.
On the one hand, this is a pity because Inter-Tel put a lot of thought and development dollars behind the 7000. It was to be the SIP-based communications server that would provide Inter-Tel customers with the all-IP platform that hybrid Axxess systems were just unable to be. Never mind that there was no particular migration path from the older to newer system: Inter-Tel's "managed service" program would replace one with the other at no upfront cost to customers.
But on the other hand, it's good to see Mitel starting to rationalize the two companies' product offerings. Just after the merger took place I remember being told that there would be no attrition in the Inter-Tel product lineup, that all would be offered alongside the Mitel offerings indefinitely. I was - and remain - rather dubious, considering the amount of overlap in the Inter-Tel and Mitel portfolios. So it's good to see that overlap issues are in fact being recognized and addressed by this new powerhouse of SME communications systems.
Point products are apparently not the only thing in flux at Mitel; there have been some personnel and organization changes as well. Inter-Tel honchos Norman Stout and Craig Rauchle are apparently CEO and president, respectively, of "Mitel US." I'm assuming this is a pseudonym for the Mitel division that is still being publicly called Inter-Tel but for all intents and purposes is now Mitel's south of the Canadian border operations. Ross McAlpine, erstwhile president of Inter-Tel's Network Services Group, is now with Internet America. Mitel technical guru Dan York relocated to Voxeo after, he says, he was synergy realization-ed out of the office of the CTO. And the always amiable Jeff Ford, CTO of Inter-Tel who post-merger became CTO of Mitel, has also left the company, effective December 31.
I'm getting the impression that Mitel will soon provide a formal update on the effects of the merger on its products, personnel and ops. I'll keep you posted when I hear the official word as it disseminates from the folks up in Kanata.
