Making clear one of the reasons why British Telecommunications Plc wants to sell its 51% stake in Mitel Corp, Northern Telecom Ltd announced yesterday that British Telecom would be its sole UK distributor for the new Meridan 1 PABX launched on Tuesday (CI No 1,354). The Meridian 1 competes directly with the Mitel SX2000 PABX. The move also threatens to take away part of GEC Plessey Telecommunications Ltd’s customer base, because GEC used to build the Northern Telecom SL/1 under licence – it is now called the iSLX – and the Meridian 1 is being offered as an upgrade to those users.
