Avaya strikes IP development deal with Altura

Avaya has announced a deal with Altura Communication Solutions that calls for Avaya to develop interoperability software that would allow Altura customers to migrate from their existing Fujitsu 9600 networks to Avaya’s ECLIPS (enterprise class Internet protocol solutions) system.

The deal also calls for Altura to sell and service the ECLIPS portfolio of products throughout the United States.

Altura currently supports about 6000 enterprise users of the Fujitsu platform and would continue to support that technology until the migration to the Avaya IP platform is completed.

But some resellers of Avaya equipment are concerned because they fear the deal will squeeze them out of an opportunity to sell to Fujitsu users needing to migrate to next-generation telephony systems as their existing systems reach the end of their useful lives, because Altura is Fujitsu’s master reseller.

“We’re really concerned,” said Bill Sigler, CEO of reseller Digital Phone USA. “You have a fixed number of customers, and you’re going to have more people with the same product, singing the same song. Before it was us against Fujitsu, which was a fair fight. Now Fujitsu is carrying the same product we’re carrying.”

This fear has created an opportunity for Avaya competitors such as AltiGen, which has received in the past two days calls from more than 50 Avaya resellers looking to handle its products.

“Some are resellers that didn’t want to talk to us before, but now want to talk to us about carrying our products,” said Richard De Soto, senior vice president of marketing and sales at AltiGen. “Others that were interested only in carrying part of our product line now want to carry us entirely.”

This is more good news for a company that has seen its revenues increase by an average of 20% per quarter over the past three quarters, said De Soto, who expects revenues to increase by even larger percentages in succeeding quarters as Avaya resellers migrate to AltiGen.

“The reason we’re doing as well as we are, quite frankly, is because our competition is shooting itself in the foot,” De Soto said.