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Carousel is well positioned to expand its videoconferencing business behind Avaya's move, Wadbrook said. The solution provider also partners with Polycom and other video players like Vidyo, and has been building its video practice throughout the past two years, including via a 2011 acquisition of A/V integrator OmniPresence.
"Carousel has been doing this for many years and doing it with a multi-vendor approach," Wadbrook said. "We understand the specific needs of this space and can add it to the portfolio we already have, which is unique in the community of Avaya channel partners."
Wadbrook and several partners cited the breadth of Radvision's portfolio and its emphasis on mobile video through the Scopia Mobile application as attractive to partners wrestling with customers' BYOD challenges.
"It's a real positive in that it now allows Avaya the ability to provide customers with a suite of cost effective, easy-to-use, high definition video collaboration solutions to further build out the UC portfolio," said Richard Tarity, executive vice president, sales and marketing for Transcend United, a Wayne, Pa.-based solution provider. "With that ever demanding and ever-changing BYOD market, Radvision integration into the Avaya product line is a home run."
Other Avaya partners say they'll need Avaya to be as up front as possible about how Radvision will benefit its channel and how it intends for partners to sell its associated video wares.
"It seems like a knee-jerk reaction," said Stuart Chandler, president and CEO of Optivor Technologies, an Annapolis Junction, Md.-based solution provider and top Avaya data networking partner. "They want to get further into video because Cisco had its video play, and LifeSize went to Logitech."
Chandler said he hadn't seen communication from Avaya about Radvision channel plans and that partners would need a clearly-defined strategy soon.
"The big thing for me back in the Nortel days was that information got out, and everyone was clear about strategy, and you had calls with customers and the partner community was behind it, being told why it was going to work," Chandler said. "Avaya seems to be making a lot of moves because it needs to IPO and is trying to hit quarterly numbers. They're doing things that aren't clear and defy their channel strategy. People want to hear from Avaya that it's supportive of partners and that this is important for partners."
Next: Avaya Talks Partners, Radvision Particulars
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