Avaya

Avaya Inc.
Private
Industry Technology
Predecessor Lucent Technologies
Founded 2000 (2000)
Headquarters Santa Clara, California, United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people

Kevin J. Kennedy (CEO)

Dave Vellequette (CFO)
Products Network equipment for businesses
Revenue Decrease $4.371 billion (FY 2014)[1]
Increase $197 million (FY 2014)[1]
Decrease $ 298 million (FY 2014)[1]
Total assets Decrease $7.234 billion (FY 2014)[1]
Owner
Number of employees
11,701 (Sep 2015)[2]
Subsidiaries Avaya Government Solutions
Website avaya.com
Office seen through glass doors
Avaya office

Avaya (/əˈv.ə/) is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California which specializes in Internet telephony, wireless data communications and customer relationship management (CRM) software.[3][4] It serves organizations at over one million customer locations worldwide, with operations divided globally into five regions,[5] and is number 101 on Forbes' list of America's largest private companies.[6]

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]

Development

In 2001, the Mark Avaya Interaction Center for customer relationship management began, enabling businesses to draw multi-platform call centers to multimedia, multi-site contact centers. The following year, Avaya IP Office and the Avaya Unified Communication Center were introduced. A proposed "converged communications" road map focused on the role which applications would play in making communications improve business performance, and the company managed the communications networks for FIFA World Cup games in Japan and Korea.

In 2003, Avaya MultiVantage communications applications (integrated with Avaya Communications Manager), were introduced. The following year, Avaya's Contact Center Express (the first multimedia contact center designed for medium-sized businesses) was introduced. In 2005 Avaya Voice Portal 3.0 (later Avaya Aura Experience Portal), the company's first software-only voice over IP application platform (IVR plus other automated channels), was introduced.[8] Voice Portal followed the Conversant IVR and Avaya Interactive Response (AvayaIR) IVR as the core of the Avaya Aura Call Center Solution.

In 2006, Louis D'Ambrosio became the company's CEO and president. Avaya one-X Quick Edition, based on emerging SIP-based technology, was introduced and FIFA World Cup games in Germany were carried on an Avaya communications network. The following year, the Avaya Customer Interaction Suite (based on end-to-end SIP) and Avaya Communication Manager 4.0 were introduced.

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[9][10] and the company was delisted on the New York Stock Exchange.[11] 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.[12]

In 2009, the Avaya Aura for integrated communications was introduced, and in December the company acquired Nortel Enterprise's assets for $900 million.[13] 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.[14] On October 4, 2011, the company reported that it was acquiring Sipera Systems for its session border controller (SBC) and unified communications security applications.[15][16] On October 19, 2011, it was reported that Avaya would buy Aurix.[17] Shareholders approved the acquisition of Radvision for about $230 million on April 30, 2012,[18][19] and the deal closed in June.[20]

2013–2015

Avaya Fabric Connect supported the network backbone at InteropNet 2013, and the company supplied network equipment for the 2014 Winter Olympics.[21] Avaya Stadium, in San Jose, California, opened in 2015.

Bankruptcy (2016–2017)

According to May 2016 news articles[22] 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.[23] 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.[24] In November, Avaya considered chapter 11 bankruptcy while trying to sell its call-center business.[25] On January 19, 2017 Avaya filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, saying that its foreign operations would be unaffected.[26][27] In its petition, the company listed $5.5 billion in assets and $6.3 billion in debts.[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, Ubiquity Software Corporation, 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.[30][13]

Locations and support

Avaya's headquarters are at 4655 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, California. The company had offices in over 145 countries in 2011.[31] Avaya sponsors a users' group[32] and training programs for IT professional certification in the use of Avaya's products.[33] In 1985, Performance Engineering Corporation (later PEC Solutions) was formed to offer technology services to government customers.[34] On June 6, 2005, Nortel acquired PEC Solutions to form Nortel PEC Solutions.[35][36] On January 18, 2006, Nortel PEC Solutions was renamed Nortel Government Solutions.[37] On December 21, 2009, Avaya acquired Nortel's government business as part of the company's assets sale.[38][39]

Patents

Avaya bought Nortel Enterprise and acquired its patents, including:[40][41]

Sports sponsorships

Avaya was an official partner of FIFA tournaments from 2001 to 2006. The contract included the 2002 FIFA World Cup in South Korea and Japan and the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Avaya, FY 2014 Financial Results" (PDF). avaya.com. Retrieved Jan 16, 2015.
  2. "SEC filing Sept 2015". SEC.
  3. "Avaya on the Forbes America's Largest Private Companies List". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
  4. "company overview" (PDF). Avaya.
  5. "Office locations by Country". Avaya.
  6. "America’s Largest Private Companies". Archived from the original on March 22, 2016.
  7. "The story of Ma Bell". CNN. July 9, 2001. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
  8. "Speech Technology with Impact – Avaya Voice Portal 3.0 and Dialog Designer 3.0". speechtekmag.com. Retrieved Nov 23, 2016.
  9. "Avaya, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Nov 1, 2007" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved Jan 19, 2013.
  10. "Investment Firms Pick Up Avaya For $8.2 Billion". Informationweek.com. June 5, 2007. Retrieved 2011-08-18.
  11. "SILVER LAKE AND TPG CAPITAL COMPLETE ACQUISITION OF AVAYA" (PDF). silverlake.com. Silver Lake. 2007-10-26. Retrieved 2017-01-20.
  12. "Avaya Leadership". avaya.com. Retrieved Jan 23, 2015.
  13. 1 2 Sean Michael Kerner (September 14, 2009). "Avaya Closes Nortel Enterprise Deal for $900M". internetnews. Retrieved Feb 16, 2010.
  14. Julianne Pepitone (June 9, 2011). "Avaya files for $1 billion IPO". CNN Money. Retrieved June 9, 2011.
  15. "Avaya, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Oct 4, 2011" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved Jan 19, 2013.
  16. Larry Hettick (October 4, 2011). "Avaya acquires Sipera". Network World. Retrieved Oct 6, 2011.
  17. "Aurix Acquired by Avaya". Yahoo!.
  18. "Avaya, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Jun 6, 2012" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved Jan 19, 2013.
  19. Shoshanna Solomon (15 March 2012). "Avaya Agrees to Acquire RadVision for About $230 Million". Business Week. Retrieved 4 Sep 2012.
  20. "RADVISION Acquired By Avaya". radvision.com. Radvision. 2012-06-05. Archived from the original on 2014-05-15. Retrieved 2012-09-04.
  21. "Avaya's Private Equity Owners Explore Sale". Fortune. 2016-05-20. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
  22. "Avaya's private equity owners explore sale: sources". May 20, 2016 via Reuters.
  23. "Edited Transcript of Avaya Inc earnings conference call or presentation 16-May-16 9:00pm GMT". www.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
  24. "Avaya Weighing Bankruptcy Filing, Sale of Call-Center Software Unit". Wall Street Journal. 2016-11-23. Retrieved 2016-11-30.
  25. "Avaya Press Release on its decision to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy for its US operations". Retrieved Jan 20, 2017.
  26. Linnane, Ciara. "Avaya files for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection". MarketWatch. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  27. Moise, Imani; Jarzemsky, Matt (January 19, 2017), Avaya Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection, New York: The Wall Street Journal, retrieved January 22, 2017
  28. "Avaya Acquisitions". avaya.com. Retrieved Jan 22, 2015.
  29. "Nortel Networks, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Sep 14, 2009" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved Jan 19, 2013.
  30. "Avaya Worldwide Locator". Retrieved Aug 18, 2011.
  31. "IAUG". Retrieved Jan 30, 2015.
  32. "Avaya Professional Credential Program". Avaya Learning. Retrieved Nov 9, 2014.
  33. "PEC Solutions Inc.". Washington Post 200PEC Solutions Inc. 2005. Retrieved Apr 1, 2011.
  34. "Nortel Completes Acquisition of PEC Solutions, Inc.". Business Wire. June 7, 2005. Retrieved Apr 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. Retrieved Apr 1, 2011.
  37. "Avaya/Nortel combination aims for greater growth". Nortel. Dec 21, 2009. Retrieved Jan 11, 2012.
  38. "Who We Are". Avaya Government Solutions. Retrieved Apr 1, 2011.
  39. "Avaya Closes Nortel Enterprise Deal for $900M". Internetnews. Sep 14, 2009. Retrieved Feb 26, 2011.
  40. "List of Patents that have Issued to the Nortel Family of Companies" (PDF). Nortel. Retrieved Feb 26, 2011.
  41. "System, device, and method for improving communication network reliability using trunk splitting". Retrieved Feb 26, 2011.

Further reading

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