The Changing VoIP Landscape

Solution providers are preparing for the fallout from seismic shifts now under way as a major player prepares to enter the market and a series of mergers, acquisitions and public offerings infuses other vendors with cash.

Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Avaya is leaving the harsh Wall Street spotlight via an $8.2 billion deal with private equity investors expected to close this fall, while ShoreTel chose the opposite path as it began trading on Nasdaq early last month, raising $75 million.

Others like Alcatel-Lucent, Paris, began operations in December 2006 following the $13 billion merger of Alcatel and Lucent Technologies, while Mitel, Kanata, Ontario, is snapping up Inter-Tel in a $732 million deal expected to close this quarter. Reports have also surfaced that private equity firms are interested in buying 3Com, though the vendor declined to comment.

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Cisco Systems, meanwhile, is shaking up the low end of the market with an aggressive push backed by a new small-business VoIP system that began shipping this summer and a small-business partner specialization unveiled earlier this year through which it aims to add 10,000 solution providers to its certified partner ranks. In addition, the San Jose, Calif.-based company in May acquired conferencing provider WebEx for more than $3 billion, a move that significantly strengthens its communications portfolio.

Along with those developments looms the potential impact on the channel of Microsoft's entrance into the space and the marketing deluge, product launches and partner recruitment efforts that come along with it.

Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., already has a year-old partnership with Nortel Networks aimed at jump-starting its entrance into the market, a deal that itself sent shock waves through the channel and seemingly cemented a growing rivalry between Microsoft and sometimes-partner Cisco.

Then, last month at its worldwide partner conference in Denver, Microsoft rolled out a voice specialization and revealed that it has begun recruiting partners with the skills to deploy unified communications solutions. The vendor took those steps in order to lay the groundwork for the scheduled launch this fall of Office Communication Server 2007, a linchpin in its unified communications strategy.

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