Avaya Offering Free Emergency Communications for Irma. Money Grab or Smart Business?

Avaya – extremely heartless or extremely kindhearted?

Avaya made news with their latest offering to victims of Hurricane Irma, but is it good news or bad?

No one wants to see victims of natural disasters taken advantage of like those people price gouging bottled water during the Florida evacuations. That’s just adding insult to injury.

As Americans we are great at coming together to help our fellow citizens in times of need.

Today’s question is now whether Avaya is looking to lend a helping hard or take advantage of the victims of Hurricane Irma?

According to the Historic City News, they’ve been informed that

whether your agency is a customer of AVAYA, or not — Avaya is offering complimentary technology support, including additional licenses and telecommunications assistance, as Florida prepares for the arrival of Hurricane Irma.

Hurricane Harvey had devastating effects in Louisiana, and Texas. Hurricane Irma could have devastating effects across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Continued communications are essential to all organizations but many companies and their employees have had their telephone service interrupted or cannot come to the office to work.

Source: Avaya Offers Free Emergency Communications

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When you read the entire statement, it truly looks as if Avaya has nothing but the best intentions at heart for offering this program.

“Our team lives here in Florida and we want to do our part to help with the recovery efforts to get our state back up and running,” an AVAYA company representative told Historic City News.

Source: Avaya Offers Free Emergency Communications

Bravo Avaya!

We all know “the show must go on”, so for a lot of business affected by Irma ,it’s now time to re-build and get back to the day to day duties of business. One of the major keys to doing that is being able to communicate and staying connected.

So during a time of emergency when some people were charging $99 for a 24-pack of bottled water, that was selling for only $9.99 a week prior, Avaya is stepping in to help get communications up and running for those hit hard by Irma’s destruction.

Bravo Avaya, Bravo!

What do you think?

View our Industry News section for more stories about Avaya and other telecom news.

Category: Telecom, Telecom Equipment, Telecommunications

Tags: AvayaBusiness Phone SystemsTelecomTelecom EquipmentTelecommunications

Telecommunications Company Avaya reaches debt restructuring deal with creditors to exit bankruptcy

Telecommunications firm Avaya announced on Monday that they now have a clear path to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy by reaching an agreement with its senior creditors and the government’s pension insurer.

The arrangements could cut more than $3 billion from the $6.3 billion in debt Avaya had when it entered bankruptcy in January.

Avaya had faced challenges in attempting to transition from a company centered on hardware, and neglected to sell its call center business. Avaya said that it had backing from holders of over half of its $4.38 billion first-lien debt along with a settlement with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp to complete its underfunded salaried employee pension plan.

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Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2qS5b32Nf0

Kevin Kennedy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Avaya

Kevin Kennedy who has been Avaya’s President since January 2009 stated that:

“We are very pleased to have reached these agreements with these key stakeholders in our restructuring process, the Ad Hoc First Lien Group and PBGC.”

“This is an important milestone in the chapter 11 process and marks Avaya’s progress toward our goal of emerging a stronger, more competitive company. Further, we believe this is a positive and beneficial outcome for our stakeholders.

With a creditor-supported and confirmable Plan of Reorganization in place, we now have a clear and viable path to emerge from chapter 11 in the near term.”

Source: Commstrader

Avaya & Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp

The Santa Clara, California-based company has also struggled with its pension obligations.

The PBGC has said Avaya’s hourly workers plan was underfunded by $660 million and its salaried workers plan was underfunded by $1.24 billion.

According to court documents Avaya will pay the PBGC $300 million and give it 7.5 percent of the stock in the reorganized Avaya in return for transferring obligations for the salaried plan to the PBGC

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Key Points:

• First lien debt holders receive payment before all other debt holders.
• The reduction of Avaya’s debt by more than $3 billion from pre-filing levels.
• This restructuring involves three different Avaya pension plans.
• The settlement and transfer to PBGC of Avaya’s obligations under the APPSE.
• Avaya’s continued support of its obligations under the Avaya Pension Plan (“APP”).
• Initiation of steps to enable Avaya to emerge from chapter 11 as a public company.

Other Resources:

• Avaya Files Plan of Reorganization and Disclosure Statement

View our Telecommunications section for more stories like this and other telecom news.

Category: Telecom, Telecom Equipment, Telecommunications

Tags: AvayaBusiness Phone SystemsTelecom EquipmentTelecommunications

Could ShoreTel acquire 8x8?

There's an unidentified source claiming that:

8x8, a VoIP and cloud service provider focused mainly on business customers, is considering selling the company amidst a growing wave of consolidation in the telecom service provider industry segment. Citing unnamed sources close to the company, Reuters reported that 8x8 has been consulting with Morgan Stanley to gauge the interest of other similar companies and private equity firms.

Report: VoIP, cloud provider 8x8 considers a possible sale | FierceTelecom

Why would ShoreTel even be interested? Well, besides the obvious,

ShoreTel and Vonage have been aggressively expanding their reach via acquisitions. In 2015, ShoreTel acquired Corvisa, a provider of cloud-based communications solutions, for $8.5 million, enhancing its unified communications capabilities.

Report: VoIP, cloud provider 8x8 considers a possible sale | FierceTelecom

With Vonage being just as aggressive, I'm sure they would also like an opportunity to do the same, assuming the claim is true. They've purchased four companies themselves, Nexmo, iCore, SimpleSignal and Telesphere.

Visit us here for more on ShorTel business phone equipment and  news