Avaya Crowing over Data SuccessAvaya Crowing over Data Success

Another strong quarter for a division that many didn't expect Avaya to keep after it acquired Nortel.

Avaya has been out letting the world know that the data networking business it acquired with Nortel Enterprise Solutions is experiencing a revival--most recently, with results from the second quarter of CY2010 that show Q/Q growth from 1QCY10, which itself grew over the previous quarter.

I talked with Steve Bandrowczak, VP & GM of Avaya Data Products, who took over when Joel Hackney moved up to head worldwide sales for Avaya. Steve got into some of the specifics of the latest reports.

Steve noted that Avaya's core Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 saw 15-20% growth Q/Q in the just-completed quarter, a figure he said is particularly significant because it shows that customers are committing to the Avaya data portfolio end to end, not just in pockets at the edges. "Our customers are starting to make more strategic investments with us," he said.

Year-over-year growth for Q2CY2010 was about 30%, Steve added. And in addition to the core switch, another highlight was some "very nice wins" for the 8100 WLAN switch.

Bandrowczak conceded that one reason for this year's strong growth numbers is that 2009 was such a terrible year for Nortel as it descended into bankruptcy and uncertainty over the course of the year. He did point out, however, that last year was one in which customers were not spending as freely in general as they might have, given economic conditions, so this helped mitigate the likelihood of these customers replacing Nortel with competitors' gear.

He also insisted that Avaya represents the best alternative for enterprises that aren't certain about locking themselves into too-tight of a linkage between their networks and servers, which is the proposition that Cisco and HP are coming to the customer with now. Avaya can keep the customer out of this "very big holy war" between the two larger vendors, he said.

Furthermore, he said that the Nortel/Avaya portfolio's lineage, which goes back to Wellfleet routers and the subsequent Bay Networks products, offers a strong selling point, especially against HP, a newcomer to data networking by comparison.

And even though HP has bolstered itself with the acquisition of the third of the original "big three" of data networking--3Com--Steve said customers are still waiting to see the portfolio integration play out with the HP-3Com merger.

Bandrowczak has a very specific goal for the data portfolio: Doubling the business within 8 quarters of the Avaya-Nortel merger. The competition is stiff, but the company seems to have turned the ship in the right direction.