TalkingHeadz Podcast with David Petts of Mitel
Mitel is back in the news again – this time for its planned acquisition of Unify from Atos. This podcast only touches on that – the news was very fresh and the deal hasn’t closed yet. However, it’s an interesting…
Quick Thoughts on RingCentral and Mitel
It is rare when industry news is both surprising and predictable at the same time. After markets closed yesterday, RingCentral and Mitel announced a new partnership. On the surface it looks similar to previous RingCentral partnerships with Avaya, Atos, and…
Mitel Summit 2019
Mitel hosted a summit for analysts and consultants in Dallas in September 2019. A packed full day of overviews, roadmaps, demos, and a 9 innings of MLB. Here’s my thoughts from the road. There is a ton going on at…
Mitel and Avaya
The Wall St. Journal is reporting that Mitel has made an offer to acquire Avaya. Maybe. It’s 4AM in Singapore, but I have a few thoughts on this. While it’s not surprising, it’s probably not that realistic either. It’s not…
TalkingHeadz Podcast The UC Channel with Todd Abbott
It’s been a few weeks since we posted a TalkingHeadz. We try to queue these up more evenly but got hit with a last minute cancellation and then a whirlwind of conference travel. See/hear other TalkingHeadz conversations here.
#MitelNext 2018
Here’s my post-event quick thoughts video on #MitelNext 2018. Very interesting event. I think it’s the most committed and aligned messaging from Mitel leadership in some time. The event itself was a three-ring circus, but with each ring in a…
Mitel Goes Private
Mitel loves to buy undervalued companies, so has it decided to buy itself. Companies with consistent growth (share, revenues, and profits) generally see their stock price go up. It’s a happy story — until it’s not. When share, revenue, and…
Consolidation Round-up
The business communications industry is evolving fast in terms of technology, but also in the number of vendors and providers competing in this market. There were several major shake-ups that impacted the unified communications (UC) space in 2017. Mitel purchased…
Who Killed ShoreTel?
Mitel will soon seal the deal on its acquisition of ShoreTel. Many people I know felt this outcome was inevitable. After all, ShoreTel indicated it was for sale and Mitel likes to acquire companies and previously made an offer. However,…
Mitel-Toshiba: Next Steps
In March of 2017, Toshiba Corporation of Japan announced abruptly it would “wind-down” its Telecommunications Systems Division (TSD) starting immediately, including all telecom sales in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The news came just as TSD was rolling out new…
New Mitel 2Pager (MitelElite)
Mitel Elite took place at the end of May and it was a very interesting event. Turns out the teams in Texas, Ottawa, and Stockholm have been quite busy with premises, cloud, and (surprise) IoT. In San Antonio I saw…
Quick Thoughts on Mitel Toshiba
Today Mitel confirmed that it has reached an agreement with Toshiba to assume its enterprise PBX business. The press release states: Mitel will “transfer certain assets and support obligations, including existing inventory, from Toshiba Corporation. . .Combined with the transfer…
Mitel: Digits Away!
Today Mitel announced its intent to divest itself from Mitel Mobility (previously known as Mavenir) which Mitel acquired in April 2015. Mitel decided “to refocus the company exclusively on the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) market.” This news comes just…
Mitel MiCloud Office Enters US Market
Recently, Mitel introduced MiCloud Office, a new unified communications as-a-service (UCaaS) offering available in the U.S. and UK markets now, with Germany and France to follow in the third quarter of 2016. The cloud-based service is generally aimed at smaller…
A Fork in Avaya’s Road
There is quite a bit of speculation about Avaya’s near term future. As you may recall Avaya announced plans to evaluate options regarding its capital structure. I wrote about this here. Based on gossip and chatter, it seems that something…
ShoreTel’s High Cost of Success
The first time I ran into ShoreTel was in the late 80s. I saw their ad in Hemispheres (United Airlines in-house magazine). The ad was actually for the earlier version of the company called Shoreline Communications, and it was about making…
Polycom Gets a Better Offer
Three months ago Mitel and Polycom announced their engagement. It was one of those deals that you had to focus through the left side of the brain to appreciate. The synergies were questionable, but Mitel got Polycom to agree to…
Newz Snippets Spring-2016
Sometimes being succinct, yet thorough, and presenting details without fluff and hype is refreshing. Here, we round-up recent advancements around business telephony and unified communications products and services – in a brief, quick-take type of format. Read about some of…
Mi-Polycom
Now that the deal is announced, Zeus Kerravala and I share our thoughts and reactions on the proposed merger. Related Posts: Mitel Polycom Unite See prior video/Blab on Mitel/Polycom merger speculation.
Mitel and Polycom Unite
The last time I went to Asia Mitel acquired Aastra. While traveling in Hangzhou China, I heard that Mitel now intends to acquire Polycom. Although I didn’t have time to post while traveling, I did manage to connect with both…