Avaya Partners with RingCentral in Exclusive UCaaS Deal

RingCentral and Avaya join forces

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Avaya Partner with RingCentral in Exclusive UCaaS Deal
Unified Communications

Published: October 3, 2019

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

Following weeks of chatter in the rumour mill about Avaya and its potential exit from the communication and collaboration space, the company has released an exciting announcement. Today, the leading communications solutions provider announced a strategic collaboration with experts in cloud comms, RingCentral. Through this thrilling new partnership, Avaya will be introducing the new “Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral.” This global UCaaS strategy will help to take Avaya’s portfolio to the next level in the digital age.

The updated Avaya Cloud Office offering expands the industry-leading portfolio offered by Avaya. Today, Avaya will be able to provide users with a full suite of contact centre, UC, UCaaS, and CCaaS solutions in a global environment. Avaya’s consumer base currently covers more than 100 million UC lines, and 5 million contact centre customers spread across 180 countries.

Moving into the Future with Avaya

According to CEO and President of Avaya, Jim Chirico, the collaboration between RingCentral and Avaya creates an incredible opportunity to accelerate the transition into the cloud with attractive economics for partners and customers. The new partnership gives Avaya an opportunity to access new value from a largely untouched area of the business, bringing a compelling level of value to customers and partners. Avaya believes that the complementary partnership is a real game-changer going forward.

The Avaya Cloud Office combines the leading RingCentral UCaaS platform with technology, migration capabilities, and services from Avaya to offer a highly differentiated solution. Avaya will be launching ACO in the first quarter of 2020.

The Founder and CEO of RingCentral, Vlad Shmunis, says that the strategic partnership brings together the strengths of RingCentral and Avaya to provide an exciting new solution. Both Avaya and RingCentral will be working together to offer incredible new growth opportunities to their partners, extra value to shareholders, and new opportunities to end-users.

Avaya Isn’t Done Yet

Though the waters have seemed somewhat unsteady for Avaya in the last few months, this new strategic movement is set to get the company back on track. Clearly, Avaya is keen to continue growing and expanding in the years to come. The strategic actions that the company is taking today are a result of their ongoing insight into the needs of their customers and end-users. With a new opportunity in UCaaS, Avaya will be able to deliver more of the flexible cloud-based solutions that today’s diverse businesses need.

For the partnership, RingCentral is contributing a $500 million investment into its partnership with Avaya. This includes a $125 million investment of 3% preferred equity that converts at $16 per share, representing an approximate 6% position in Avaya on as-converted basis. Additionally, RingCentral is also paying Avaya an advance of around $375 million in stock for licensing rights and future payments.

 

Customer ExperienceDigital TransformationMergers and Acquisitions
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