Avaya acquires Israeli start-up ITNavigator

New Jersey-based Avaya announced Tuesday that it was acquiring Israeli communications integrator and social media solutions provider ITNavigator. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but rumor has it that the company was bought for several tens of millions of dollars. The acquisition, said Avaya, will allow the company to expand its offerings in the rapidly growing area of cloud-based social media.

ITNavigator already worked with Avaya closely as a partner, and its Social Media Gateway product integrates with call center systems from Avaya and others, including Cisco, Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, and Presence. The ITNavigator system allows companies to manage their social media presence – for example, picking up on postings by customers praising or criticizing a company, and allowing a full response, or quickly detecting promotions on social media by competitors, enabling an ITNavigator customer to respond quickly with its own promotions.

Besides helping out with social media engagement, ITNavigator contains robust reporting tools that let administrators control communications within and outside a company. In addition, ITNavigator has been the OEM provider of Avaya Contact Center Control Manager — recently expanded and renamed Avaya Collaborative Cloud — so combining ITNavigator into Avaya “will enable tighter integration of this fully-featured, user-friendly, end-to-end management and administration solution across Avaya’s cloud, unified communications and contact center portfolios,” the company said.

ITNavigator was established in 2001, is located in Petach Tikvah, and has 45 employees. Avaya Communications was created in 2000 as a spin off of the business telephone division of Lucent Technologies Inc. Last year, Avaya acquired Israeli communications equipment maker RadVision for $230 million.

“IT and contact center executives and managers are in need of solutions that simplify day-to-day operations and enable them to quickly and easily bring on new capabilities,” said Avaya Senior Vice President Gary E. Barnett. “Our experience with ITNavigator — and perhaps more importantly — our customers’ experience with ITNavigator, has indicated that they bring a differentiated, easy-to-use set of solutions that makes the promise of ‘next generation’ contact center, unified communications and cloud-based applications a reality.”

Commenting on the acquisition, ITNavigator Vice President Arik Shtilman said: “Our relationship with Avaya has grown in mutual respect, and in recent times the boundaries between the two companies have narrowed as we drove to a common goal of simplifying sophisticated technologies. We are excited to be part of Avaya, a leader in innovation with respect to the Cloud, UC and Contact Center and its efforts to enhance its leadership with the addition of ITNavigator’s products and technology.”