Is this for real? Just got the press release...

It looks real.
Vertical Acquires Vodavi

It is. Just got a factory call explaining their reasoning. :shhh:

And their reasoning is?

It's real. My guess is that it's to gain more of a chunk of the market. At this point, it looks good for Vodavi and it's network of dealers but time will tell.

Remember that Vertical is a holding company.

I've been told it was for multiple reasons. VTEK was profitable, had cash in the bank,stock probably undervalued, extensive R&D and Marketing department, good size dealer and customer base, LG manufacturing connection, ability to jump market share to the number 4 position, etc. I'll know more this evening.

Isn't Vertical the one that bought Comdial a few years ago?

Yes and I think it was early this year.

I got it too. I don't see how it can be a bad thing for those of us selling Comdial. Not sure what it does to the Vodavi guys. We are all partners now I guess.
Mark

I think someone is trying to gather speed and give the Big boys a run for their money...like Avaya and Nortel

LG-Nortel gets about 12% of Vertical with the buyout of Vodavi. Had anybody even hear of Vertical 3 years ago? I hadn't. Now they own Comdial and Vodavi. Hope it works out.

OK, now. The company will be called:

1. Comdavical
2. Vocomical
3. Vodavical
4. Verdavidial
5. Vertavicom
6. V.C.V.
7. Verticalvodavicom

Anyway--looks, to me, like a very good match.

Vertical has been around. You may know them for there products TelAvantage, Instant Office, Artisoft. After aquiring Comdial they have that product as well now, and shortly Vodavi. These are all products now, not companys. Imagine what could happen if you with time take the best that all these products have to offer, and add to it a dab of R&D, a pile of money, a truck load of great dealers, distributers, and an established existing customer-base. You might have a company that could be a real player at the Big Boys Table.

As both a Vertical and a Vodavi Dealer we are excited about the opportunities this will present. Just my Opinion....

And if they had good Internet presents for the industries key words, you might have a company that's not just a player but transforms into "The Big Boy" and gets a table for one.

I just replied to a thread on the same topic in the Installers forum ( https://www.sundance-communications.com/forum/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/22/t/000920.html ), before I found this one.

Here's what my comments were:

https://www.vertical.com/250.html

Public news. Interesting. We got the same notice.

Hasn't Vodavi run into some of the same trouble Comdial had in the recent past? I thought I had heard a while back that Vodavi was in trouble, and then things got better. Does this indicate things didn't improve enough, prompting the buy-out?

Not that there may be much difference in products (speaking ignorantly), but if Tadiran falls on similar hard times, I wonder if they would be next. It seems like they all (Comdial, Vodavi, Tadiran) have something in common. I think Tadiran is probably a little stronger than the other two though (again, ignorantly speaking).

From what I hear Vodavi has been profitable for the last 20 plus quarters. Small growth but debt free. Lots of cash in the bank. Don't see the synergy in the product lines but I fix phones not build empires. Heard that some interesting money has come in to help this purchase so others see it as viable. Also hear this may or may not be the last acquisition. :shrug: That being said lends credence to Justin's theory about rounding up some others to build a market place share only beaten by Nortel and Avaya plus maybe NEC. Supposedly fourth place market share with combined sales of $100 million plus annually and alot of more cash in the bank. With Norstar and Partner at the probable end of life they could be perched to launch a run at the SMB market place and make some noise. Dust is still settling but as they say in NASCAR "things are about to get racy".

Vodavi hasn't ever been in "trouble". They had a few bumps in the road when still a privately-held company, but it was the result of their divorce from Executone in the early 1990's. The company has never been anywhere close to Comdial's predicament. As Dave said, Vodavi is a very attractive company to investors and holding companies since it operates so efficiently.

As the big boys have made their beds, they can now rest comfortably knowing that the little guys will clean up their damage to the industry's reputation.

Ed

You sound like a preacher. I must admit you speak
the Gospel's all the above is the truth.

Vodavi is run very smooth, Something like the telco-s were before deregulation. Basic math will tell you or anybody that they are in the black
and have been for many years. They do the simple things which means everything in my book.

Key systems is not a get rich quick game.
We must all ask are self daily, Am i doing the best i know how in my daily walk as a human creature? What does my grass look like in the back yard? We can only do so much at times .Key system sales/Installation is a art when done proper. Comdial at one time was a decent gig when first going from Stromburg to Electronic key.Somebody just forgot about the basic rules
of communications. All key systems company's are
fine. The customer has just got to be taken care of. When they forget the basic principal it will
show in the end, and the truth will prevail

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out at the end of the year when the sale is complete. I am intrigued to see what happens with the name (though in the end a name is just letters). One would presume that you cannot continue with three names, Vertical, Vertical Comdial, and Vertical Vodavi; but who knows? It seems as though in 1-2 years time they would transition to just Vertical as the brand.

As for Tadiran, they have partnered with other organizations like ECI and Sprint, but I do not see them being bought out any time soon. What a lot of people do not realize is that they are basically the Nortel or Avaya in a good portion of the Middle East. They are a fair player in the world market if not the US market. I could see them partnering for the US market, but not a buyout of the company.

Steve

8. VeryComical

As has been mentioned, the name thing is pretty much a done deal, IMO.

Vertical buys companies and turns them into Vertical brands. The Vertical Comdial-line. The Vertical Vodavi-line. No different than the Ford Lincoln-line (bad example, but you get the idea...someone else can correct the analogy using a line that a car company created by buying another company). The make becomes a model of a different make, that's all.

But I do think the name variations y'all have come up with are pretty funny!

I'm a Vodavi Bronze dealer and have had limited access to some of their equipment such as the Starplus " UNI Gold " 3501-01 ( which is kind of ridiculous in my opinion ), and some of the other products. I wonder if this will change when Vertical takes over ? I never really understood why they didn't just give gold dealers better discounts on hardware than silver, and silver better discounts than bronze. If I ( a Bronze dealer ) have a customer with a particullar need, it just doesn't make sense that I can't give it to them. Maybe I've jumped off the subject a little , but I had to let it out.