Nortel's SMB Onslaught

With its portfolio expansion, Nortel for the first time is adding SMB switching, secure routing and wireless LAN products to its existing SMB voice lineup, which includes its Business Communications Manager (BCM) 50 VoIP offering and Norstar key system family.

One Nortel partner, Barry Gerhardt, president of Barry Communications, Worcester, Mass., said the new wares are likely to displace Cisco Systems gear in many of his existing Nortel VoIP deployments and to provide larger deployment opportunities within new accounts. The new infrastructure lineup should also help solution providers looking to migrate current Norstar partners to the BCM platform, he said.

"We're now delivering a total converged solution to that SMB customer, and we're able to provide a one-stop shop and one support call for voice and data," Gerhardt said.

Barry Communications' Nortel product sales will grow at least 25 percent this year because of the new offerings, he said.

Nortel estimates that its current share of the North American SMB market hovers around 18 percent, with SMB sales accounting for approximately 25 percent of its overall business, said Tony Pereira, portfolio business leader for SMB data at Nortel.

Until now, the vendor's SMB VoIP products have typically been coupled with infrastructure equipment from other vendors, including 3Com, Cisco, D-Link and Hewlett-Packard, Pereira said.

Among the new product lines is the Business Ethernet Switch 100 family, a line of managed 10/100 switches that includes 24-port and 48-port models as well as models with support for the 802.3af Power-over-Ethernet standard on half the ports. Pricing, not yet finalized, will likely range from $535 to $2,254, Nortel said.

Business Secure Router 222 incorporates broadband routing and data services with security features, including firewall, authentication and support for 802.1x/EAP. It is expected to carry a price of $578.

On the wireless front, Nortel is launching Business Access Point 120, a stand-alone access point for sites with 10 to 100 users that supports 802.11a/b/g. Pricing is expected to range from $550 to $605.