Rivals and analysts have wasted no time in reacting to the news that unified communications firm Avaya has acquired video conferencing company Radvision.
Kevin Kennedy, president and CEO, Avaya
The opportunity for personal workspace is now. Customers demand a rich, collaborative user experience that is interoperable and easy to use. In addition, we believe this transaction will leverage a highly-skilled, incredibly talented and experienced workforce ready to deliver video to enterprise customers. With this acquisition we will seek to extend videoconferencing to any device, anytime, anywhere, making it as easy as a phone call.
Henry Dewing, Forrester
These two technological powerhouses have the combined brainpower to put together some of the most advanced unified communications solutions in the world.
I believe this acquisition will almost immediately enable Avaya to better sell into mixed environments with older video and VoIP solutions by integrating Radvision’s H.323 stack into the Avaya Aura product set.
The long-term success of the combination will depend on the combined company’s ability to deliver open, interoperable, software-based unified communications that provide the flexibility to integrate — not just with communications components, but also with business applications and processes.
Polycom
The acquisition will cause disruption in Avaya’s channels and dissolve the existing Avaya and LifeSize OEM relationship. The Avaya and Radvision solution integration will likely take multiple quarters and immediately opens the opportunity for Polycom to gain share and sell even more RealPresence Video through Avaya channels.
Avaya is buying a struggling company in Radvision, with minimal market share, annual revenues of less than $100 million, and revenue declining 18% in Q4 2011 vs Q4 2010.
This acquisition does not integrate into Avaya’s current portfolio. In addition, the Radvision portfolio is not as broad as the Polycom portfolio and does not adequately support the diverse needs of enterprise and Service Provider customers.
Polycom will continue to deliver a robust portfolio of high-quality, standards-based voice and video collaboration solutions to a range of Avaya platforms including Avaya Aura, Avaya Communications Server, and Avaya IP Office.
