BIG UC NEWS from Vonage, Avaya and Zoom

Welcome to our weekly collection of the biggest news coming out of the UC&C industry.

This week saw Ericsson announce its intention to acquire Vonage, Zoom’s Eric Yuan open up on the possibility of making another bid for Five9, and Avaya saw its first growth revenue in a decade.

Ericsson Set to Acquire Vonage

Vonage is set to be acquired by Ericsson for a cool $6.2bn.

Ericsson said the purchase is being made to fuel its development of a global communication network.

The acquisition has already been approved by Vonage’s board and is scheduled to be completed in the first half of 2022, providing it receives regulatory approval and support from Vonage shareholders.

Börje Ekholm, President and CEO of Ericsson, stated:

“The acquisition of Vonage is the next step in delivering on [our] strategic priority. Vonage gives us a platform to help our customers monetize the investments in the network, benefitting developers and businesses.

“Imagine putting the power and capabilities of 5G, the biggest global innovation platform, at the fingertips of developers. Then back it with Vonage’s advanced capabilities, in a world of eight billion connected devices. Today we are making that possible”

For further analysis on the Ericsson/Vonage deal, check out UC Today’s David Dungay‘s chat with Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst, ZK Research.

UC Trends on Working From Home

Our UC Trends series has continued throughout November, discussing the latest technologies and innovations in an ever-evolving industry.

This week we cast our eye over the topic of Working From Home, and with industry experts from Webex, Crestron, ClearOne, LogMeIn, Poly and Yealink to discuss the customer trends they’ve experienced this year, and what the industry should expect from customers going into 2022.

Zoom Boss on Reviving Five9 Deal

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan this week revealed on an earnings call that it’s “hard to know how to re-engage” a potential acquisition of Five9.

The videoconferencing giant first announced its intention to acquire Five9 in a $14.7bn all-stock deal back in July. Five9 shareholders ultimately rejected the takeover, with Zoom’s share price drop in the months that followed the bid reducing the value of the offer.

Yuan did not rule out making a second attempt to acquire Five9 but said that any potential return to the table would be complicated.

“In terms of the deal, actually, nobody knows that [so] let’s see,” he said.

“It’s really hard to know how to re-engage or do the deal with Five9 because we’re two public companies”

Avaya’s Resurgence Continues

Avaya this week reported its first year of revenue growth in over 10 years.

Sales for the year ending 30 September hit $2.97bn, up 3.5 percent on the previous 12 months. OneCloud annualised recurring revenue rocketed 177 percent year on year to $530m.

CEO Jim Chirico hailed the year as a “significant” one as the company continues its transition into a cloud-first business.

“Avaya’s fiscal 2021 was a landmark year for the company,” he said.

“What our team accomplished represents a pivotal point in our history and a defining moment for the company, and it will play a central role in our success story of Avaya as we move forward”

“The outstanding results we delivered exceeded expectations on almost every front. These results not only reflect how far we’ve come but, importantly, reinforce the speed at which we are delivering on our value creation strategy: grow the company through a cloud and SaaS business model, and remain highly profitable.”

Cisco’s Mixed Results

The networking giant reported a mixed bag for Q1 of its new fiscal year.

Sales in the vendor’s Hybrid Work business fell seven percent year-on-year to $1.1bn. The vendor’s overall revenue climbed eight percent to $12.9bn.

Hybrid Work category was the only one of Cisco’s seven new reporting categories to see revenue dip.

Despite this drop, CEO Chuck Robbins remained optimistic about the company’s role in hybrid work.

“It’s about the holistic capabilities to support a highly distributed workforce that requires new infrastructure architectures, observability, and security,” he said.

“Many companies are in the process of defining their hybrid work strategy, which will be based on the technology we build across our networking, security and collaboration portfolios”

“We are also leading the way with new innovation, including our recently expanded Webex portfolio, purpose-built for inclusive experiences across hybrid work, workspaces, and events.”

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