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

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.