Avaya () is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California that specializes in business communications, specifically unified communications, contact center, and services. It serves organizations at 220,000 customer locations worldwide. It was ranked No. 113 on Forbes' list of America's largest private companies in 2017.
The company originated as a unit of Lucent Technologies, which was spun off from AT&T in 1995. Avaya was then spun off as its own company in 2000. It remained a public company from 2000 to 2007, when it was purchased by private equity firms. Avaya filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2017. It emerged from Chapter 11 on December 15, 2017. It again became a public company, trading under the stock ticker AVYA.
History
Installing Avaya IP Office - as quick as getting a cup of coffee! - Installing Avaya IP Office Business Phone System - Watch as Christian Wright walks you through the installation of Avaya IP Office in less than 7 minutes - about as quick as it takes him to...
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.
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 that applications would play in making communications improve business performance. 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-size 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. 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 and the company was delisted on the New York Stock Exchange. 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.
In 2009, the Avaya Aura for integrated communications was introduced, and in December the company acquired Nortel Enterprise's assets for $900Â million. 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 $1Â billion in an initial public offering. On October 4, 2011, the company reported that it was acquiring Sipera Systems for its session border controller (SBC) and unified communications security applications. On October 19, 2011, it was reported that Avaya would buy Aurix. Shareholders approved the acquisition of Radvision for about $230 million on April 30, 2012, and the deal closed in June.
2013â€"2015
Avaya Fabric Connect supported the network backbone at InteropNet 2013, and the company supplied network equipment for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Avaya Stadium, in San Jose, California, opened in 2015.
Bankruptcy (2016â€"2017)
According to May 2016 news articles 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. 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. In November, Avaya considered chapter 11 bankruptcy while trying to sell its call-center business. On January 19, 2017 Avaya filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, saying that its foreign operations would be unaffected. In its petition, the company listed $5.5 billion in assets and $6.3Â billion in debts.
In an effort to monetize its assets during the bankruptcy period, Avaya announced in March 2017 it would sell its networking business and associated products to Extreme Networks for $100 million USD. The sale was finalized in July 2017.
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. 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.
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. Avaya sponsors a users' group and training programs for IT professional certification in the use of Avaya's products. In 1985, Performance Engineering Corporation (later PEC Solutions) was formed to offer technology services to government customers. On June 6, 2005, Nortel acquired PEC Solutions to form Nortel PEC Solutions. On January 18, 2006, Nortel PEC Solutions was renamed Nortel Government Solutions. On December 21, 2009, Avaya acquired Nortel's government business as part of the company's assets sale.
Patents
Avaya bought Nortel Enterprise and acquired its patents, including:
- US20050007951 â€" Routed split multi-link trunking
- 7173934 â€" System, device and method for improving communication-network reliability using trunk splitting
- 6496502 â€" Distributed multi-link trunking and apparatus
- UNIStim
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. It has been the title sponsor of Avaya Stadium since its opening in 2015.
References
Further reading
External links
- Official website