Mitel and Vidyo Promote the Conversation

Virtualization spawns friendships. Both Mitel and Vidyo have partnered with VMware for several years. Last year, the two firms demonstrated a UC video-enabled solution within a single VMware environment resulting in a "meet-in-the-channel" partnership. Yesterday, the relationship got a lift and Mitel became a Vidyo distributor.

Under the terms of the agreement, Mitel will offer training, support, and the entire Vidyo catalog to its global dealer network. Mitel is also hosting the Vidyo solution available to dealers through its MiCloud services. Mitel's service offering can be combined with customer-owned call control as a cloud-premises hybrid solution.

Does video and UC mix? Infonetics Research recently published its 1st quarter Enterprise Telepresence and Video Conferencing Equipment market share and forecast report. Among its conclusions were:

• Worldwide revenue for enterprise videoconferencing and telepresence equipment and software declined to $661 million in 1Q13, a 20 percent sequential drop
  
  
• Sales of PBX-based video systems grew 18 percent sequentially in 1Q13 and are up 118 percent from the year-ago quarter

Indeed it does appear that UC and video make for a good combined solution. Mitel joins Cisco, Avaya, and Microsoft in actively marketing video as part of its UC solution - though without the hardware.

It's a big win for Mitel and its channel partners to attach to Vidyo which in 2012 grew its billings 68 percent. Mitel works with several video partners including LifeSize and Magor, but Vidyo's solution aligns on virtualization and integrates with Mitel's UC client.

It's also a big win for Vidyo that picks up a global distributor, UC partner, and service provider in one swoop. Both Mitel and Vidyo are working to establish themselves primarily as software vendors. The joint go-to-market solution uses the MiCollab client as the single desktop application connected to shared VMware infrastructure.

Mitel now considers Vidyo a strategic partner along with VMware, Microsoft, and Blackberry. "Video is a game changer for business communications, delivering an intuitive real-time experience that boosts productivity and builds closer team cohesion. Getting video to actually work within the organization and especially across other media, on the other hand, has been a challenge," said Ron Wellard, EVP and GM, Mitel Communications. "Our integrated Vidyo solution, closely tying video into our MiCollab and MiVoice platforms, will cut costs, reduce complexity and make video easily and pervasively available to enhance collaboration."

The past few weeks have been very busy for Mitel. In addition to this announcement with Vidyo, Mitel is hosting its annual Business Partner Conference, announced its quarter and financial year, acquired prairieFyre, and celebrated its 40th birthday.