All Good Things Must Come To An End. Avaya Announces The End Of Sale Of The Nortel BCM

By Dale Beech, Edited by Scott Camball

As we all know, the rate at which technology advances is often astronomical. One thing that remains consistent is the superior quality and reliability of the Nortel BCM telephone system. It has been said to be the best phone system of its time, and it took Nortel to number 1 in the worldwide market. But is enough enough? According to an old English Proverb “All good things must come to an end” and to that I’d say “Here’s to you Nortel. You deserve it!”

Last week, Avaya took the final steps towards terminating one of the largest telephony legacies that has ever existed “Nortel Meridian Norstar/BCM”.



Avaya International announced the end of sale for the BCM product line. This was not a shock or a surprise to the industry as rumors of this have been rampant since the unveiling of the Avaya roadmap back in 2010. This is merely the anticipated move.

However, this truly is the next page especially in the Canadian marketplace. Seeing that Nortel Meridian Norstar and BCM had what some people estimated as high as 80% of a Canadian telephone market and ten's of millions of headsets sold worldwide this truly is a defining moment in market.

It is not that Avaya left customers high and dry; Avaya has provided customers a strategy and a full migration path to Avaya IP office 7.0. Learn more about IPO 7.0.

When Avaya purchased Nortel in 2009, they announced shortly after the end of life of the Meridian Norstar products. However, customers did not seem to react that badly as customers had huge confidence in the Norstar system as well as the Norstar was such a stable platform, which very rarely broke down. With the BCM product line, that may be a different situation as the BCM is a more integrated solution delivering more than just a plain old phone system (pops) like the Meridian Norstar.

Let us breakdown this announcement and how it affects the customers

First, end of sale is not end of life yet! For the next 9 months, Avaya will still continue to sell the full BCM product lines.

March 1, 2012 the last day for the sale of systems excluding upgrades.

March 1, 2015 will be the last day for upgrades, expansion and any authorization codes

March 1, 2018 last day for Avaya support of the BCM product line


At Telecom Resource Corporation we’re proud to announce that we will continue to sell this great product until our stock depletes and of course we will continue to service and support our customers on all products indefinitely. At TRC we’re extremely proud of our customers and we’re dedicated to providing them with the best possible service and support for you and your company. We have plenty of vendors on hand and will continue to provide service and support for your system as long as you require.