For the past year, we’ve all been watching the flirtatious feelings that Skype and Avaya have been showing one another. On September 29, 2010, these two companies will finally join forces in a new deal dubbed a “strategic Unified Communications and collaboration partnership.” More details on what this means are forthcoming in a press conference taking place later on.
So why would Skype and Avaya finally come together after a year of dancing around? To start, both companies share the same private owner, Silver Lake Partners. Both of these communication giants focus on different communications technologies, but yet these technologies are very complimentary to one another. Skype is by far the most popular internet based communication service amongst consumers, while Avaya handles businesses and government agencies.
Skype has been trying to break into the business space ever since its original IPO back in August. Skype and Avaya have also been encroaching on one another’s communications space for some time. Skype with their free internet based calling, and Avaya starting to make the push for video teleconferencing. Both of these companies are seeing a continued need to grow in the others dominant space, so it only makes sense to partner up for easier access to that space.
This might be good news for Avaya and Skype fans, but there are companies who are not so happy by this new partnership. Particularly, Cisco and Polycom will have a hard time swallowing this partnership pill. Cisco and Polycom have both made substantial investments into their own video teleconferencing technologies, with Cisco even developing a tablet device geared around this budding technology.
The partnership with Skype and Avaya is only starting, and the benefits will take months to be fully visualized. The benefits to both consumers and businesses could be very substantial with new technologies being introduced into each space. Who knows, maybe Skype services will start becoming an integrated part of every Avaya device
