The Future of Pingtel?

If you haven't heard, Nortel recently acquired Pingtel's software-based telephony assets on Wednesday, driving forward Nortel's SIP-based enterprise communications portfolio. As with any acquisition, customers of Pingtel must be wondering: what now?

Nortel plans to "integrate Pingtel technology" into its SMB portfolio, especially the Nortel SCS500 (Software Communication System). Of course, this integration will take some time, and the results could be, well, questionable.

I've worked with a number of Pingtel products over the years, and while they have been somewhat feature-limited at the enterprise level, they are solid telephony solutions. Now, with the Nortel acquisition, customers wonder whether Pingtel's product line will simply disappear, and if they will be forced into a Nortel product.

Honestly, I'm quite dissatisfied with Nortel's promise of SIP integration. After evaluating their top-to-bottom, enterprise-to-SMB product lineup, Nortel continues to lack solid (but promised) progress in supporting SIP endpoints and non-legacy trunking scenarios. Will the Pingtel buy change any of this? Most likely not. In comparison, Avaya's SIP integration is head-and-shoulders above Nortel's progress in the field. I know of several organizations utilizing Nortel CS1000E switches that are still waiting on SIP endpoint support.

In conclusion, the details of this deal are quite unimpressive. Nortel bought out a small-to-medium size company that developed stable UCS solutions. Their open-source following, with the SIP Foundry project, is most likely under question too. Time will ultimately tell, however, I can't say that I'm ever too thrilled with buyouts such as this.