ShoreTel VP: Avaya Channel’s Discontent Is ShoreTel’s Gain
6 days ago by Charlene O’Hanlon 0 Comments
Posted in News, Avaya, Channel Conflict, Channel Partner, Channel Programs, Enterprise, Nortel, Partner Relationship Management (PRM), ShoreTel
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Concerns over Avaya’s support of the Nortel line and competition with direct sales are resulting in a migration to ShoreTel by former Nortel and current Avaya channel partners, said Kevin Gavin, ShoreTel’s vice president of marketing.
“We are seeing substantial revenue growth and are starting to see success in attracting new partners,” he said. “Some of the Nortel dealers are in ‘jump ball’ mode and frankly there is some chaos in the Avaya channel. It’s nice when we can sit back and pick off highly desirable channel partners [from our competitors].”
ShoreTel has had a good year, capturing greater market share in the IP communications space and enjoying quarter-over-quarter revenue growth. Last month, research firm Synergy Research Group declared ShoreTel to be the fastest growing IP telephony vendor worldwide, based on the company’s revenues and number of UC desktop deployments.
“Markets crave three leaders in every technology, and in IP telephony it used to be Cisco, Avaya and Nortel. Now, with Avaya picking up Nortel, there are two seats at the table,” he said. “We feel we are capturing that third seat.”
Gavin noted that ShoreTel is entering the conversation more frequently these days, after having worked hard to push its mantra of “brilliantly simple” unified communications.
“ShoreTel approached unified communications as an integral part of the business phone system,” he said. “When you buy ShoreTel, you get unified communications. It comes with the desktop application. There are no attach rates, no extra licenses. We were early with this desktop application. Now everyone pretty much offers this notion of desktop management, but other players tend to have an attach rate whereas we have a universal take because that’s all we sell. That is consistent with and contributes to whole notion of simplicity.”
Postitioning itself as a viable alternative to former Nortel partners has also helped ShoreTel shore up its channel partner base. Since January the company has signed up 22 Nortel partners and 18 Avaya partners, Gavin said. Noting discontent within the Avaya channel, ShoreTel made a play for former Nortel channel partners who decided not to sign with Avaya as well as current Avaya channel partners not happy with having to compete with Avaya’s direct sales force, Gavin said.
“We are getting good traction attracting Nortel partners that Avaya had planned to pick up because Avaya has not committed to support development of the BCM line going forward.” Also, he said, some former Nortel channel partners aren’t wowed by the Avaya IP Office line, and “we hear that they are finding that using Aura to integrate Nortel systems with Avaya is very complicated. As a result, we are picking up previous Nortel partners who are deciding to go with ShoreTel instead of Avaya.”
Gavin said his observations were the result of conversations he had with Nortel partners who have signed up with ShoreTel as well as those who are planning to sign up.
Steve Fitz, vice president of U.S. Sales at Avaya, noted that the company just released an update to BCM last month, and has created a roadmap to align and integrate the BCM and IPO product lines. “There has never been any release of end of life of the platform,” he said.
Gavin also noted a large number of partners are signing on with ShoreTel because of its channel-centric sales model. “We’re aware that there is a significant amount of concern in the Avaya channel about the Avaya direct sales program that continues to compete with their partners and the partners wish that Avaya was 100 percent indirect like ShoreTel,” he said.
MY TAKE: I HAVE BEEN IN THIS BUSINESS FOR 25 YRS AND THIS IS A DIFFICULT BUSINESS TO BE IN AND PROSPER. Trying to guess where the industry is going next, competition from other manufacturers and from other vendors selling the same product as you but trying to get former competitors to sell under the same umbrella, FORGET IT. This will continue to be a struggle for the forseable future and I have no idea how you can fix it.
