Mitel Networks: Terry Matthews Next Success Story?
Mitel Networks filed a 6-K earlier this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with some interesting numbers. While revenue dropped 15% in the year ended April 30, 2004 to $461-million,a growing amount of the company's sales are coming from IP equipment rather than older PBX technology. To a large extent, Mitel's success depends on how aggressively corporate customers move to IP technology. There is good momentum in the PBX market as older PBX equipment is replaced by IP-PBX technology. It is more difficult, however, to find strong growth in other sectors. In a recent meeting, Avaya Canada president Mario Belanger said much of the IP action is happening at the edge rather than the core. Many companies, he said, are looking to leverage what they already have with some new IP technology. It is supplement rather than rip and replace. If this trend continues the IP revolution could be a very quiet evolution - rather than a revolution. Based on the SuperComm show last week in Chicago, IP is really happening in the network core as carriers move to make their systems more efficient. As carriers such as Bell Canada and Telus moved to offer managed service, the corporate market could slowly move along in parallel. IP is where it's at, but it's a long-term development.
