Image via Wikipedia
A few days ago eWeek and a few others picked up on the rumor that Avaya (the spinoff of Lucent and really Bell Labs) from over a decade ago was looking to purchase Radvision, long an inventor of real time communications technology out of Israel and New Jersey. The reason for the interest in Radvision is two-fold. Video and patents.
Avaya should have been in the hunt for Skype, and likely was for a bit, but they got bested by Microsoft. Their primary business is IP-PBX's and desktop IP phones. Video is a also a part of their business so as the world goes more and more virtual face to face they need to bolster their offerings, the same way competitor Shore-Tel does in order to stay more competitive with Cisco and Polycom. Radvision provides some of those pieces, but so would Vidyo, which to me would be a far better move for Avaya for a variety of reasons, starting with their approach to what some would call the cloud, but what really would be truly hosted video.
Vidyo would likely be a nicer fit and maybe a better fit but investment bankers don't always look at fit, they look at the deal…and Radvision is in a better position to play let's make a deal.
