Back towards the beginning of March this year, the well-known Toshiba Corporation of Japan stunned the world by abruptly announcing that it would be winding down its telecommunications division, effective immediately. That meant quickly closing all telecoms sales across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The reveal came just as the telecoms division had begun to roll out new features for the “IPedge” communications platform.
Though Toshiba promised that it would continue to offer to support to dealers in terms of warranty and maintenance agreements for consumers, Mitel quickly took advantage of the brand’s sudden failure to swoop in with a quick purchasing offer. By May, the company announced a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MoU) with Toshiba, who would be transferring all their support obligations, assets, and existing assets into Mitel’s hands. The transfer was announced as “officially completed” on July 5th.
The question is, “What now?”
What Comes Next for Mitel?
By the looks of things, the biggest task on Mitel’s to-do list involves swallowing up all the failing assets it’s taken over from Toshiba – if you can call them assets in the first place. Mitel has begun their 60- to 90-day review process, during which time they’ll be taking a look at everything they’ve purchased from Toshiba, including those assets that ended up forcing the company to come to such an abrupt end.
Let’s not forget, after all, that Toshiba’s less-than-successful telecoms solutions were the reason why the brand was forced to suddenly abandon the communications space, waiving early termination charges for subscription customers. In my opinion, Mitel would have been better served thinking about how they can innovate within their own business, rather than devoting their resources to supporting Toshiba during its failure.
In an attempt to promote the change, Mitel has already launched many “Switch to Mitel” offers before the MoU, in an attempt to help move Toshiba customers over to a Mitel-based service instead. The promotions will be adjusted as the company decides what it’s going to be doing with the Toshiba products in the coming months.
CloudLink and PBX Purchases
A huge part of the Toshiba customer migration to Mitel products comes with the new “CloudLink” technology. CloudLink is designed to connect premises-based PBX systems to a new series of secure and focused cloud-based applications, currently being developed by the experts at Mitel. These systems are currently using Amazon Web Services.
The Toshiba customer base will be able to migrate at their own pace since CloudLink enabled on IPedge, Strata Cix, and VIPedge platforms will allow access to the next-generation system of applications, including IoT solutions. The first application (codename: Bluebird), will target smaller companies in America with mobile UC solutions.
It seems that in this new environment, Cloud Link is Mitel’s simple and effective solution to purchasing legacy-based third-party PBX platforms. With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder which of the companies on the market will catch Mitel’s eye.
