Aastra Plots Path from Acquisition to InnovationAastra Plots Path from Acquisition to Innovation

Aastra's strategy is to create high-value applications available across its portfolio that convince customers to stay with Aastra as they upgrade their technology.

For many in North America, my title might evoke the question, "Who is Aastra?" It is an enterprise communications company with 50+ million lines installed and 2010 revenues of $720 million (Canadian), competing with the likes of Avaya, Cisco, Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent. Eighty-plus percent of that revenue is from the EMEA region, the reason the brand is less well-known here. Aastra was created from the 2000-2008 rollup of assets from several Nortel businesses (e.g., terminals and network access solutions), the Ascom and EADS PBX divisions (including the Intecom assets), DeTeWe and perhaps the largest driver of today's technology portfolio, Ericsson's Enterprise Communications Business.

Aastra's creation from many different companies is the context for Co-CEO and President Tony Shen's comment at last week's analyst meeting in London that, "You may have known us as a company that makes acquisitions. Now you will get to know us as a company that innovates."

Aastra claims 500K+ customers in 100 countries; like most vendors, a large portion of that base has yet to make a complete move from legacy TDM architectures to IP/SIP. Aastra's strategy is to create high-value applications that will be available across its portfolio of call managers (MX-ONE, Aastra 700, etc.) that create a compelling story for customers to stay with Aastra as they upgrade their technology. Included are unified communications (especially video), mobility applications and contact center.

The video play centers on the BluStar terminal, announced at Enterprise Connect 2011. The link is to a YouTube video that gives a sense of the terminal, but you really do have to see it live. While the 13-inch screen may at first look like it replicates what a PC and Skype could do, the wide-angle camera and 8 directional microphones actually provide a much more immersive experience than PC video calls alone. The BluStar product line will expand in 2012 to include BluStar client and agent applications--similar to the way Avaya Flare is available both on the Avaya Desktop Video Device and as a stand-alone application.

The contact center presentation was made by SVP for Strategy, Yves Laliberte (formerly VP Sales for Avaya in Canada). Aastra's contact center application is Solidus eCare, part of the Ericsson portfolio. Aastra's flagship enterprise telephony application, MX-ONE, has an Ericsson heritage. Laliberte pointed out that Aastra is in the competitively advantageous position of having a contact center application that was actually built to run on its telephony platform, and thus is tightly integrated for things like administration and common presence. Some market leaders can't say the same.

Under non-disclosure, Laliberte was able to discuss some compelling recent competitive wins for Aastra's contact center solution, both in North America and Europe. As some of these references become public, customers and competitors alike may no longer be asking, "Who's Aastra?"