Avaya

Avaya (/əˈvaɪ.ə/) is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, that specializes in business communications, specifically unified communications (UC), contact center (CC), and services.[3][4][5] Serving organizations at 220,000 customer locations worldwide, Avaya is the largest pure-play UC and CC company, ranking No. 1 in CC and No. 2 in UC and collaboration. The company had FY19 revenues of $2.89 billion, 83% of which was attributed to software and services.[6]

Avaya Inc.
Public
Traded as
ISINUS05351X1019 
IndustryTechnology
Predecessor
  • Lucent Technologies
Founded2000 (2000)
Headquarters
Santa Clara, California
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Jim M. Chirico, Jr. (CEO)
  • Kieran J. McGrath (CFO)
ProductsDigital communications products, solutions, services
Revenue US$2.89 billion (FY19) US$2.25 billion (FY18) [2]
US$706 million (FY19) US$(611 million) (FY18) [2]
US$(671 million) (FY19) US$287 million (FY18)[2]
Total assets US$6.95 billion (FY19) US$7.68 billion (FY18) [2]
Number of employees
7,900[2] (2019)
Websiteavaya.com
Avaya office

History

Name

In 1995, Lucent Technologies was spun off from AT&T, and Lucent spun off units of its own in an attempt to restructure its struggling operations.[7]

Avaya was then spun off from Lucent as its own company in 2000 (Lucent would merge with Alcatel SA in 2006, becoming Alcatel-Lucent, in turn being purchased by Nokia in 2016). It remained a public company from 2000 to 2007, when it was purchased by private equity firms.

In 2001, Avaya Interaction Center - software for customer relationship management - was released, enabling businesses to draw multi-platform call centers to multimedia, multi-site contact centers. A proposed "converged communications" road map focused on the role that applications would play in making communications improve business performance.

On December 15, 2017, it once again became a public company, trading under the stock ticker AVYA.[1]

Acquisition and return to private corporation

In October 2007, Avaya was acquired by two private-equity firms, TPG Capital and Silver Lake Partners, for $8.2 billion[7][8] and the company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.[9] The following year, Avaya Speech to Text (enabling voicemail messages to be read on mobile devices or computers) and Avaya Unified Communications (focusing on role-based communications for teleworkers, home agents, small-business mobile workers, branch-office integration, retail stores and branch banking) were introduced, and Kevin Kennedy became the company's CEO and president.[10]

In 2009, the Avaya Aura for integrated communications was introduced, and in December the company acquired Nortel's Enterprise assets for $900 million.[11] The following year, Avaya was the converged-network equipment supplier for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, and Avaya Aura Contact Center was introduced. In June 2011, Avaya filed an application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise up to $1 billion in an initial public offering.[12] On October 4, 2011, the company reported that it was acquiring Sipera Systems for its session border controller (SBC) and unified communications security applications.[13][14] On October 19, 2011, it was reported that Avaya would buy Aurix.[15] Shareholders approved the acquisition of Radvision for about $230 million on April 30, 2012,[16][17] and the deal closed in June.[18]

Bankruptcy (2016–2017)

According to May 2016 news articles[19] citing "internal sources", Avaya's private-equity owners (Silver Lake Partners and TPG Capital) considered a sale of the company valued at $6 to $10 billion including debt.[20] During the company's earnings call that month, CEO Kevin Kennedy had confirmed that Goldman Sachs was helping Avaya evaluate expressions of interest received relative to specific assets and explore other potential opportunities.[21] In November, Avaya considered Chapter 11 bankruptcy while trying to sell its call-center business.[22] On January 19, 2017 Avaya filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, saying that its foreign operations would be unaffected.[23][24] In its petition, the company listed $5.5 billion in assets and $6.3 billion in debts.[25]

In an effort to monetize its assets during the bankruptcy period, Avaya announced in March 2017 it had received a stalking horse offer for its networking business and associated products from Extreme Networks for US$100 million.[26] There were no other bids and the sale was finalized in July 2017.[27]

In October 2019, Avaya entered into a strategic partnership with RingCentral and together, will introduce a new unified communications as a service solution (UCaaS) called Avaya Cloud Office ( “ACO”). RingCentral has agreed to contribute $500 million and will be the exclusive provider of the new Avaya UCaaS offer.[28]

Acquisitions

Since 2001, Avaya has sold and acquired several companies, including VPNet Technologies, VISTA Information Technologies, Quintus, RouteScience, Tenovis, Spectel, NimCat Networks, Traverse Networks, Agile Software NZ Limited, Konftel, Sipera, Aurix, Radvision and Esnatech.[29] Through Nortel's bankruptcy proceedings, assets related to their Enterprise Voice and Data business units were auctioned. Avaya placed a $900 million bid, and was announced as the winner of the assets on September 14, 2009.[11][30]

Locations and support

Avaya's headquarters are at 4655 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, California. In 2019, the company had a presence in approximately 175 countries and during its last 4 fiscal years served more that 90% of the Fortune 100 organizations.[6]

Avaya sponsors a users' group[31] and training programs for IT professional certification in the use of Avaya's products.[32]

In 1985, Performance Engineering Corporation (later PEC Solutions) was formed to offer technology services to government customers.[33] On June 6, 2005, Nortel acquired PEC Solutions to form Nortel PEC Solutions.[34][35] On January 18, 2006, Nortel PEC Solutions was renamed Nortel Government Solutions.[36] On December 21, 2009, Avaya acquired Nortel's government business as part of the company's assets sale.[37][38]

Patents

Avaya bought Nortel Enterprise and acquired its patents, including:[39][40]

  • US20050007951 – Routed split multi-link trunking[41]
  • 7173934 – System, device and method for improving communication-network reliability using trunk splitting[42]
  • 6496502 – Distributed multi-link trunking and apparatus[43]
  • UNIStim
gollark: "Good in theory" is a weird thing to say about communism when it's more like "good according to marketing for it, like every ideology", not "good if you actually think about it and know how humans work".
gollark: Yes, I agree.
gollark: Yes, exactly.
gollark: Good in theory if you know basically nothing about humans, perhaps.
gollark: I don't think it's very good in theory if it's got a giant problem you could easily see coming.

References
  1. "Avaya to Ring Opening Bell, Begin Trading on the New York Stock Exchange". MarketWired. January 16, 2018. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  2. "Avaya 2019 Annual Report (Final)" (PDF). avaya.com.
  3. "Avaya on the Forbes America's Largest Private Companies List". Forbes. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  4. "company overview" (PDF). Avaya. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 14, 2015. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  5. "Avaya at a glance" (PDF). Avaya. Retrieved December 13, 2017.
  6. "Avaya 2019 Annual Report (Final)" (PDF). avaya.com.
  7. "Avaya, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Nov 1, 2007" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
  8. "Investment Firms Pick Up Avaya For $8.2 Billion". Informationweek.com. June 5, 2007. Retrieved August 18, 2011.
  9. "SILVER LAKE AND TPG CAPITAL COMPLETE ACQUISITION OF AVAYA" (PDF). silverlake.com. Silver Lake. October 26, 2007. Retrieved January 20, 2017.
  10. "Avaya Leadership". avaya.com. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  11. Sean Michael Kerner (September 14, 2009). "Avaya Closes Nortel Enterprise Deal for $900M". internetnews. Retrieved February 16, 2010.
  12. Julianne Pepitone (June 9, 2011). "Avaya files for $1 billion IPO". CNN Money. Retrieved June 9, 2011.
  13. "Avaya, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Oct 4, 2011" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
  14. Larry Hettick (October 4, 2011). "Avaya acquires Sipera". Network World. Retrieved October 6, 2011.
  15. "Aurix Acquired by Avaya". Yahoo!.
  16. "Avaya, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Jun 6, 2012" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
  17. Shoshanna Solomon (March 15, 2012). "Avaya Agrees to Acquire RadVision for About $230 Million". Business Week. Retrieved September 4, 2012.
  18. "RADVISION Acquired By Avaya". radvision.com. Radvision. June 5, 2012. Archived from the original on May 15, 2014. Retrieved September 4, 2012.
  19. "Avaya's Private Equity Owners Explore Sale". Fortune. May 20, 2016. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  20. "Avaya's private equity owners explore sale: sources". Reuters. May 20, 2016 – via Reuters.
  21. "Edited Transcript of Avaya Inc earnings conference call or presentation 16-May-16 9:00pm GMT". www.yahoo.com. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  22. "Avaya Weighing Bankruptcy Filing, Sale of Call-Center Software Unit". Wall Street Journal. November 23, 2016. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  23. "Avaya Press Release on its decision to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy for its US operations". Retrieved January 20, 2017.
  24. Linnane, Ciara. "Avaya files for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection". MarketWatch. Retrieved January 19, 2017.
  25. Moise, Imani; Jarzemsky, Matt (January 19, 2017), Avaya Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection, New York: The Wall Street Journal, retrieved January 22, 2017
  26. "Extreme Networks Signs Agreement To Purchase Avaya's Networking Business". March 7, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
  27. Natalie Gagliordi (March 7, 2017). "Avaya sells networking business to Extreme Networks for $100 million". ZD Net. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  28. October 4 (October 4, 2019). "RingCentral the 'Big Winner' in New Deal as Avaya Ends Acquisition Speculation". Channel Partners. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  29. "Avaya Acquisitions". avaya.com. Retrieved January 22, 2015.
  30. "Nortel Networks, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Sep 14, 2009" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
  31. "IAUG". Retrieved January 30, 2015.
  32. "Avaya Professional Credential Program". Avaya Learning. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
  33. "PEC Solutions Inc". Washington Post 200PEC Solutions Inc. 2005. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
  34. "Nortel Completes Acquisition of PEC Solutions, Inc". Business Wire. June 7, 2005. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
  35. Witte, Griff (April 27, 2005). "Nortel to Buy PEC Solutions For $448 Million". The Washington Post.
  36. "Nortel PEC Solutions Renamed Nortel Government Solutions". Nortel. January 18, 2006. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
  37. "Avaya/Nortel combination aims for greater growth". Nortel. December 21, 2009. Retrieved January 11, 2012.
  38. "Who We Are". Avaya Government Solutions. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
  39. "Avaya Closes Nortel Enterprise Deal for $900M". Internetnews. September 14, 2009. Retrieved February 26, 2011.
  40. "List of Patents that have Issued to the Nortel Family of Companies" (PDF). Nortel. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 14, 2011. Retrieved February 26, 2011.
  42. "System, device, and method for improving communication network reliability using trunk splitting". Retrieved February 26, 2011.
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