Avaya nabs Mac Uni from Nortel's grasp

Sydney's Macquarie University has contracted Avaya to provide it with a 6000-handset IP telephony roll-out, in what appeared to be a snub to its existing networking partner Nortel, which maintains its Australian head office on the university's campus.

In a statement, the university said it had chosen the Avaya solution (through its partner NSC) because of the quality of the products and the expertise of both companies. "We needed to replace our ageing telephony system with a new IP communications hardware and software system that enabled us to introduce further communications applications in the future," said Macquarie IT services project manager Bruce MacLean.

The new system went live in late June and will spread across the university, the institution said.

Macquarie University has maintained a strong relationship with Nortel over the years, apart from the close physical presence of the Canadian networking giant on its campus. In February 2008, the university announced that it had contracted Nortel and partner 3D networks to provide a new data network for its campus.

"The new network, designed and implemented by Nortel and 3D Networks, will completely replace the university's existing infrastructure, and result in a more reliable, scalable platform for future IP services such as multimedia, video conferencing and IP telephony," a Nortel statement said at the time.

In addition, back in July 2006 the university chose a comprehensive network security solution Nortel.