Avaya's death is a result of insular, monopolistic thinking. AT&T became the worst RBOC rollup via poor acquisitions, weak backbone and eventual selloffs, Verizon kicks their bu-t in every way. Lucent thought their stuff didn't stink and wound up clinging to Alcatel as both ships sank into Nokia. Avaya has been a mess since day 1 of the Lucent spin-off - 22 years and just 2 years of profitability, billions in largely bad acquisitions resulting in revenues a third of what they were in 2000. They took 6 years to have a viable IP product allowing Cisco to eat their lunch, missed/missing Cloud completely because they were/are too interested in protecting the base than giving the base somewhere to go technologically (except to competitors). All while acting like the world revolves around them. Now the only thing circling Avaya are the vultures.
I couldn't have said it better myself, @1sbq+1kpqIRA3.