By Jim Lundy
Mitel Buys Atos’ Unify UC&C Business Unit – Market Consolidation Continues
Last week Mitel announced that it had completed the acquisition of Unify, the business unit that was part of the Atos systems integrator unit. While terms were not disclosed, the deal is now complete. This represents further consolidation of the Unified Communications and Collaboration market. This blog analyzes aspects of the deal.
Why Did Mitel Buy Unify?
The simple answer is that the Unified Communications and Collaboration market is consolidating. Additionally, it was clear that Atos, which is more of a systems integrator was not experiencing the synergies that they wanted with the Unify business unit.
We feel that Mitel significantly strengthened its position in the market. With Unify, Mitel gains a product and industry solution portfolio that will offer strong capabilities in large enterprises. It also gives Mitel strong market distribution in Europe.
The New Mitel – The Power of Hybrid Cloud
One of the key aspects of the Mitel unified deal is that Mitel now has even more strengths in what we call Hybrid Cloud. The ability to offer both SAS capabilities as well as on-premise managed services means that enterprises have strong choices with the new Mitel portfolio.
Security and Data Privacy continue to be growing issues globally and Mitel now has significant Hybrid Cloud capabilities in UC&C and in Contact Center.
Serving Mid-Market and Large Enterprise
Mitel had strong success in the mid-market, particularly in the US. Frontier Communications is one of their top partners and the expanded Mitel Product Portfolio should help them with their clients. With Unify, Mitel gets an enterprise sales organization. In addition, they get a growing set of Mitel Partners that have boots on the ground in Europe. On top of that, the growing industry offerings from Unify will also enable Mitel to offer some of those solutions in the mid-market.
Bottom Line
The ink is still drying on the deal but the new Mitel is hitting the ground running. Mitel now has one of the largest install bases of communications seats globally. With that and the new product portfolio that has the ability to offer Hybrid UC&C and Contact Center solutions, Mitel is one to watch. This is the initial analysis – we will have more to say as more details emerge.
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Decoding the Role: AI Architect vs. Solution & Application Architects
Adopting AI-enabled technologies is as much a people, process, organization, and strategy issue as it is about technology. The best AI-enabled solution will go nowhere if it doesn’t address a future-state business need and is accepted by users. Adopting AI-based solutions requires outside-in customer, user, and business thinking; not inside-out technology first thinking. Adopting AI requires a business and future-focused architect to help guide the integration of people, process, information, solutions and AI.
- Why is an AI Architect Needed?
- What are the needed Skills and Responsibilities of An AI Architect
- How is an AI Architect Different from a Solution or Application Architect?
