Citel Acquired by Tortel USA, LLC

Just had a surprise visit from the folks at Tortel USA, LLC, whom have a local office in the Buffalo, NY area. I was surprised to learn that they have recently acquired Citel.

If you are not familiar with Citel, they make some unique products that allow businesses with hefty investments in legacy telecommunications gear from Nortel, Avaya and other tier1 vendors to gain the benefits of IP communications without scrapping their digital handsets. Citel’s Portico TVA products facilitate the redeployment of existing digital handsets from 85% of manufacturers, Nortel, NEC and Avaya included. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater any longer, and your existing phones can enjoy a second life in service to a new IP PBX core or IP centrex hosted service such as Broadsoft.

The cost savings incurred by not having to purchase new IP phones when migrating to an IP PBX are huge. In my experience, handsets can often represent the majority portion of the overall expenditure when implementing VoIP.

Another benefit here is not having to retrain all of your employees on the functions of a new IP handset. They gain the UC benefits of a new IP communications platform, but the overall user experience is much more seamless and certainly less traumatic for users.

Tortel has deep roots in the traditional Nortel pbx channel, and this acquisition makes a ton of sense from a standpoint of being able to “hit the ground running”. I spoke with them at length, and came away with a sense that Citel was in the great hands, and likely has a bright future.