Avaya Prepares Nortel Integration Roadmap

The Canadian government continues to review Avaya’s Nortel Enterprise buyout. But that hasn’t stopped Avaya from laying the groundwork for Nortel channel partners to join the Avaya ecosystem.

At Avaya’s 2010 Global Sales and Americas Partner Conference, Worldwide Channel VP Jeremy Butt revealed how current Nortel partners will be brought into the fold, as well as how Avaya partners will be affected by the increase in feet on the street.

“We have quite a few Nortel partners who have signed up, but there are still a lot who have not. When we finish the transaction, they will become partners by default. But know this: We will only have one program, the Avaya Connect program,” Butt said.

Nortel’s partner program worldwide is very fragmented, just as Avaya’s has been, so bringing every partner under the same umbrella should spread the pain evenly.

Under the new model, Nortel partners will be brought into Avaya Connect at the level that matches their revenue level, so partners who have a revenue level that matches the requirements for, say, the Silver level will be brought in as Silver partners. But, Butt noted, they will have to achieve the same competencies as their Avaya counterparts.

Plus, Avaya Connect will have two product tracks – one for Avaya products and another for Nortel products. Nortel partners will still sell Nortel products under Avaya Connect, and once they achieve a certain level of competency, they will be able to sell Avaya products. Ditto for Avaya partners. “The simplicity of the structure enables us to bring these together with no ambiguity and allow us to double our revenue,” Butt said.

It makes sense. It also opens up a lot of opportunity for Nortel and Avaya partners to work together to increase their collective customer base and increase their revenue.

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