The Avaya acquisition of Nortel sent shockwaves through the business, including for existing clients of both companies. What products would continue to work, which ones are going to be obsolete and is your servicing and support going to disappear? These are just a few of the prominent questions that existing and prospective clients, customers and partners have voiced. However, there is a plan in place, so take a look at some of what to expect for existing Nortel products, systems and solutions so you can see what the future holds.

Of course, the plan for each and every product is different. Because of the way the two companies have their own product lines set up, there will be a variety of systems that overlap, and therefore some solutions and products need to be crossed off the list and weeded out so to speak. At the same time, others are perfectly suited to be combined with one another, capitalizing on the strengths and capabilities of each, while other products can continue to be productive and capable on their own for some time in the future.

For example, the Norstar products and the BCM products such as the BCM 1000, BCM 400, BCM 50 and BCM 450 will be merging with Avaya's IP Office product line. This is going to provide a very capable, powerful and flexible platform for efficient and integrated communications for a huge range of companies and organizations.

However, for the time being all of those Nortel BCM and Nortel Norstar products and systems will continue to be effective on their own. They are going to be sold and distributed through a good portion of 2011, meaning they are still effective investments today that will be ready for upgrading and new system integration in the next year to 18 months.

For another example you can look at the future of the Nortel CS 1000 system. The CS 1000 is going to be upgraded and merged into the Avaya Aura suite of products and solutions, capitalizing on SIP based access, application integration, voice, video, presence and session managing services and more. For the next year or so CS 1000 phones and systems can continue to be deployed while over the following year or year and a half of that more of the merging, updating and integrating will be performed.

Of course, these are just a few examples of what you can expect from the combination of Avaya and Nortel. As mentioned, each product, system and solution will be handled differently. But the future is bright, and it's going to culminate in products that are more efficient and capable, to help make your business more efficient, productive and streamlined than ever before. So don't worry about being left in the dark, being unable to work with your current Nortel products or anything else. The Avaya roadmap for Nortel integration and development is going to make things as effective and efficient as possible.