Juniper, Avaya agree to expand joint development partnership

Juniper and Avaya said last week they intend to tighten their partnership to include joint product development as well as resale and support of each other's products.

Under their current relationship, the companies have integrated some of their products into systems for channel partners to sell and have worked together on some major deployments. Under the new relationship, outlined in a memorandum of understanding (MOU), Juniper and Avaya would develop new products that might carry either company's brand. Each company's sales team also would be able to sell and support the other partner's products worldwide, says Tony Scarfo, vice president of business development at Juniper.

Details of the MOU, including what types of products the companies will jointly develop, still are being worked out, Scarfo says. The partnership is subject to the parties signing definitive agreements. The partnership is not exclusive, according to Scarfo and Avaya spokesman Jonathan Varman.

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Juniper and Avaya said last week they intend to tighten their partnership to include joint product development as well as resale and support of each other's products.

Under their current relationship, the companies have integrated some of their products into systems for channel partners to sell and have worked together on some major deployments. Under the new relationship, outlined in a memorandum of understanding (MOU), Juniper and Avaya would develop new products that might carry either company's brand. Each company's sales team also would be able to sell and support the other partner's products worldwide, says Tony Scarfo, vice president of business development at Juniper.

Details of the MOU, including what types of products the companies will jointly develop, still are being worked out, Scarfo says. The partnership is subject to the parties signing definitive agreements. The partnership is not exclusive, according to Scarfo and Avaya spokesman Jonathan Varman.

Avaya, which was spun off from Lucent in 2000, has similar partnerships with other network vendors such as Extreme Networks. The agreement with Juniper was announced as Avaya introduced updates to its IP PBX family at the Interop trade show in Las Vegas.

The planned partnership would be the first of its kind for Juniper in the enterprise market. The router company, the primary rival to Cisco for carrier core routers, has strategic partnerships with Lucent, Siemens and Ericsson for carrier products, says Juniper spokeswoman Susan Ursch. Lucent last week announced it will resell Juniper routers to BT Group for its so-called 21st Century Network.

Juniper in recent years has expanded its scope to enterprise routing and last year expanded into firewall and VPN technology by buying NetScreen Technologies. Both partners face Cisco as a competitor in their respective enterprise product categories, extending from routers to IP phones.

The deal probably will be final by the end of the quarter, Ursch says.

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