Mitel CEO on prairieFyre DealMitel CEO on prairieFyre Deal

The companies' longtime close relationship should make integration "low risk" as Mitel targets Lync shops, according to CEO Rich McBee.

As a follow-up to Monday's acquisition of prairieFyre by Mitel, I had a chance to talk with Mitel CEO Rich McBee and prairieFyre CEO Chris Courneya, who becomes VP and GM of Mitel's contact center business unit with the acquisition. They stressed the long-term relationship that the companies enjoyed leading up to the deal--"we've had a great relationship with Mitel over the past 15 years," and have been OEMing to Mitel since 2002, Courneya said.

He added that becoming part of Mitel gets prairieFyre's products a shot at accounts where they previously couldn't compete. "We just want to be at the table on all the opportunities we have", Courneya said. "We were being excluded from some of the opportunities" because of prairieFyre's small size.

As Courneya's new title suggests, prairieFyre will become "the kernel for our contact center strategy going forward," McBee said.

Given the two companies' closeness, bringing prairieFyre's 130 employees into the Mitel fold should be a "low-risk integration," McBee said.