- Glenn Murer

Avaya's customers and more especially those from Nortel Enterprise Solutions (NES) have been anxiously awaiting Avaya's corporate integration plans. The good news is Avaya IP Office and Nortel BCM will continue to be sold while Avaya further develops plans to converge these systems to their hybrid IP offering, IP Office. Avaya states it will combine Nortel features, interfaces and phones with IP Office to "create a richer solution with strong investment protection benefits".

Avaya has quickly laid out a comprehensive investment protection plan for legacy Nortel customers ensuring six years of support following the date a system is sold. The swiftness of completing these tasks is commendable and demonstrates that Avaya's "Protect, Extend, Grow" strategy is not a bait and switch tactic. As announced at the Denver 2010 Global Connect Art of Evolution Conference, where for the first time Avaya and Nortel users from InAAU, INNUA and INSIGHT100 came together for official merger news, support will continue for current phones and clients, following normal lifecycles.

Rebranding of some Nortel technology is already in the works. Following are the details of Avaya's plans for the future: