atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General Telecom News Mitel buys Inter-Tel!! Ba-bye Inter-Tel, it's been nice

knowing ya...

WOW!
https://ca.today.reuters.com/news/n...TRIDST_0_BUSINESS-INTERTEL-MITEL-COL.XML

That's ok Superfone. There's still plenty of work out here if you're willing to cross over to the dark side. It's amazing how many offices love their Inter-Tel system but want no part of dealing with Inter-Tel or their vendors.

$25.60/share? The stock has traded for well north of that many times. Still, $723MM for Inter-Tel. Who knew. :shrug:

To steal a quote from one of my favorite movies, "Mixed emotions, buddy. Like Larry Wildman going off a cliff in my new Maserati."

Very interesting. Maybe 10.0 will be the last release of the axxess.

That has been rumored for some time...

I wouldn't be surprised if this was over and done with. I suspect that there may be more than meets the eye. I'm taking the wait and see attitude for the time being.
I do know that Cisco has previously gave a cash offer to Inter-tel and then of course there is Steve Mihaylo and Vector in the mix.

Time will tell.

how much did cisco offer inter-tel?

Ottawa, the home town of Mitel and Silicone Valley North, is really buzzing about the news.

I live a stone's through from Mitel's world headquaters. The whole area is thinking jobs, jobs, jobs. This acquisition whether good or bad, and time will tell, makes Mitel the largest player in IP telephony in the world. My step-son and his wife work at Mitel and I can tell you everyone there is walking on a cloud.

will they keep the name Mitel? Will they rebrand Inter-tel products to Mitel? Again only time will tell. I'll keeo posted from the inside.

I only hope that Mitel does to Inter-tel what Inter-tel did to Executone...
Mike

Wow this is amazing. We had an s2000 that we replaced in November with an AXXESS. I hope we did not shoot ourselves in the foot for support. Surely Mitel will continue support for the product, it is better than their own nonIP product from my point of view however my local Mitel support was much better than Inter-tel's so far.

I heard they just got rid of 20 techs nationaly, myself included (fired due to restructuring of the company.)
I was closing over 5 tasks a day and wasn't the bottom guy on the totem pole. Note sure what kind of algorithm they used to get rid of people...
The Seattle branch just got branch of the year for the second time in a row. You'd think they'd let the managers do thier job, but after hearing this, it makes a little sense.

The funny thing is, tomorrow I'm doing my third install for them since they got rid of me (subcontracting.)

Heard that a mandatory Corp.wide conference call is taking place tonight. So maybe we will know more afterwards.

Mitel will gain a US customer base, get $200 million in cash, get the dealer network. It had been having losses so far and now with the merger it might have profit now.

What is Inter-tel getting from this deal? Their employees will be laid off, some of the products will be shelved (specially the new 7000 since MiTeL is already in large system even though they don't have pure SIP system), shareholders are given $25.60 per share whereas the stock could have gone up higher in time with some new products coming out and with the new 7000 becoming more accepted in the market.

So, isn't the real reason for this sale that Steve Mihaylo had proposed a seven point plan which would have axed some members of the board, made Inter-tel lose the cash reserve due to stock buy back. So, the board just rushed into this deal to cash out and get rid of Steve Mihaylo.

How come Mitel didn't even do the due diligence before the purchase by going through the products, meeting the technical team etc?

This whole deal looks very mysterious right now. It might be good for MiTeL but doesn't appear good for Inter-tel by any measures.

Why would it be shelved? It's an amazing suite of applications & products. Mitel gets the 7000 AFTER it went GA and didn't have to finance the R&D period. Shelving it would be a bad move. Anyway, without the 7000 why would Mitel be interested? Legacy equipment they already have. Pure SIP they don't.

Mitel has jumped in bed with everyone from aardvark to zebra over the years. Heck the SX50 came from British Telecom, they were in bed with IBM, Rolm, and lord only knows who else. Why not Intertel? John C.

My company has had a strong relationship with the local direct Inter-Tel sales office as a sub contractor, mostly for outside plant work. This had been a 20+ year relationship, although it started when this their office was a private interconnect just selling the Inter-Tel product.

Each year, business slowed for us as their sub. Not because they didn't need us. My contact arranged for multiple subs because he saw the writing on the wall and didn't want to see any account balances get too high.

My first thought was that he just wanted to keep the playing field open and was tossing bones to several sub contractors. The difference is that he's a close friend and while he never said anything before he retired, I knew by his body language and evasive answers that he knew this was coming.

I can't say for sure, but his having been a 45 year veteran in this business, I think that he learned the hard way working for Bell that your sense of smell becomes a bit more keen when things start to churn.

Only time will tell on this one!

couldn't be much worse than what nextiraone
did to us at staples communications.
oh yea-and what blackbox is doing to nextira.
karma baby!

Well, when Mitel acquired Centigram CPE (NuPoint Messenger voicemail), it made it a division of Mitel and continued to offer tech support to the existing customer base. Even after the division proved non-viable for new development (they were working on a product called One-Point Messenger, an NT-based unified messaging software), and closed the division (July 1, 2001), they continued to offer tech support for NuPoint Mssgr, and I actually saw one being installed by a Mitel Technical Services tech yesterday. They've actually continued developing the software -- three major releases since Baypoint closed down.

So if Everyone's favorite lawnmower company is true to form, you Inter-Tel guys can expect to see continued (even improved?) support. The guy up in Kanata who's most likely to be in charge of integrating tech support with existing engineers, Dave B., is strongly respected in the industry for his broad range of knowledge and expertise.

The AXXESS line may or may not fade away(?), but even if it does, I don't think Mitel will orphan it.

FWIW

I heard that the number was actually closer to 60 employees nationaly.
I also heard that Mahalo and the top guy at Mitel were/are good freinds, but I can't verify that one.
I saw one of my ex co-workers at Inter-tel the other day... he was wearing an Inter-Tel shirt, so I asked him when they were giving him one that said Mitel.

I asked our local Branch Manager about the rumors. She said there have been no layoffs due to the merger. Not long ago, there had been some "rightsizing". The techs at TAC have a mandatory meeting on Thursday. Perhaps things will become clearer then.

The terminology they used was "Terminated do to restructuring of the company." I can assure you it wasn't that there was a lack of work here in Seattle...
As far as "Not long ago," it was on the 6th that they did the resizing, about 2 and a half weeks before the announcement.

Well the deal was approved by the shareholders!

Lawsuits are a flying!

DELL to sell the 5000 and the 7000 line, stockholders weren't told till after the approval.

Steve is back and charging fast.

Please tell me you are kidding about Dell selling Inter-tel! Next thing, Axxess phones running Vista!

Mitel will change the name to DEL-TEL?

:shrug:

Note that the VOIP connections are dotted, etheral lines, as in Can I Still Call Out, while the good old fashion telephone lines are FIRM, SOLID lines, as in YES, THEY DO WORK! I wonder if that was a sub-conscious screw-up by the artist, or did he really mean it? John C. (Not Garand)

John, so it wasn't just my poor eyesight?

Do you see it also? Did you get pictures so we can inform the Air Force Blue Book project? Oh, wait a minute, this isn't "The Twilight Zone", is it?

I had not seen that. Isn't that paramount to making the 7000 an OTR product? Not a good move IMO.

Also curious to see if there is any meat to the Mitel/Shoretel lawsuit.

Guys,

Does anyone have any more news on the above. There are people this side of the pond who would love to look into the crystal ball and know where they'll be in the next few months

I talked to a friend that was an Intertel Rep and they walked in a week ago Friday and layed them off. Of course he was told his job was secure, and I guess it was until they closed the deal.

I hear there's some layoffs coming.
Search Google for Mitel, Inter-tel then click on the news icon at the top.

I Met a bank today going with Inter-tel systems at two locations. They had not heard of the acquisition. Wish I had some friendly FUD to share with the client, but I don't see any.....

Any suggestions?

I'd like to get the :read: ,

but I'm not a fan of turning people off of other products for no reason. Is their support going to hit the toilet? Are they going to be understaffed and be unable to make guaranteed response times? Lots of questions, but no answers yet.

If all 200 of the lay offs are on the Intertel side, Intertel dealers better hang on because it might be a rough ride for a while

Hey, DN27 - nice to see another Portlander.

I've been working with Inter-Tel since my very first Hitec 824 installation in about '85. I am sure the Axxess will be going away in the next couple of years. A box with cards in it - - is so '90s'.

I am not a big fan of the 5000 and the 7000 takes a very qualified tech to install/service and we all know how hard it is to find techs that can even install a basic system correctly let alone a SIP server and such.

We are a small dealer and Inter-tel has always wanted to cater to the million-dollar a year+ sales outlets, not ones like us.

Luckily, we are also a Samsung house. Their products were 'not so good' for a long time, but their Officeserv line has lots of potential. Thankfully, we never put all our eggs in one basket.

The mid sized and smaller biz phone vendors must consolidate and reposition themselves to compete with the major players.

Mitel needed the US distribution, customer base, technology and credibility, in that order. InterTel needed new management and a buyout before they went thru another tailspin. Not that Mitel hasn't their own history of ups and downs, bad management and buyouts. That said, there's a lot of potential in the combined entity, provided it's executed well.

As an ex-Mitel dealer and tech, I sure like to see this succeed, but the outcome if most uncertain. Mitel has a history of treating smaller independent dealers poorly, Intertel seemed to manage their channel strategy only a bit better.

What will happen within the product lines? Mitel's finally got some respectable VoIP stuff in the pipeline, but some of the InterTel VoIP products are also decent. Dedicated phone systems ain't dead yet, but there's a lot of changes coming with Microsoft's entry into the biz.

I do expect this whole change process will be a bit messy for them, in both products and the dealer/direct channel.

I'd bet we'll see some other major changes by longstanding names in the telecom biz real soon now.

Rumor has it the 7000 is history. Most engineers/RD gone. The 5000 is not competitive with comparable IP/digital platforms (imo). No more CPU to CPC upgrades for the Axxess. All appearing that the Inter-Tel as I've known it for 23 years is gone.

Yes the 7000 is gone. Otherwise I'm not sure what else is going on.

No shipping as usual....ordered on 8 Nov...still has not gotten here...claim they are waiting for parts to ship.....

Ken, what product are you talking about?

3000

Yeah I personally would not spend my money/time on that system

For where it is at and where it is placed in the market....why not?

I ordered one to play with...It now has VoIP capacity, slick VM, and, Jeff, it is all done with PlayStation cartridges !!!

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