Elite Nortel partner Stuart Chandler, president and CEO of Jessup, Md.-based Optivor Technologies (who purchased avayanortel.com early on as a redirect for his site, which makes me wonder if he has some lottery numbers to suggest, too), is well on his way to Acceptance.

“Everybody in this business has drank the Kool-Aid so many times, and they’re just burned out [by] ‘the next greatest thing’ and ‘who’s going to save everybody?’ Avaya comes in and we’re like, ‘Here we go again,’” Chandler told me last week.

“But let me tell you — Avaya came in with a no-B.S. strategy, and all these senior telecom folks whom I have great respect for … started buying into the Avaya plan,” he added. “I’ve not heard one negative thing from the former Nortel [partners and customers].”

It’s a surprising turnaround for a Nortel partner, who are traditionally a fiercely loyal bunch. Take this story from late 2008 — when Juniper Networks had attempted to poach Nortel partners. Here’s what Chandler told then-senior news writer (now SearchNetworking.com editor) Rivka Little:

“We’ve been selling Nortel and we’re going to continue selling Nortel until you can pry Nortel from my cold, dead hand.”

And, yes, he knows he’s eating his words.

“I swore I wasn’t going to drink the Kool-Aid again, and here I am,” Chandler said last week. “A year ago, I didn’t want to think about Avaya … but right now, it’s full speed ahead.”

Obviously, this is just one partner’s perspective. Got another? Share it below or e-mail us.

Riggs also tweeted that about one-third of the attendees at Avaya’s partner conference are Nortel partners.

What this means for customers, and channel partners, is a gradual merging of the two companies’ unified communications (UC) portfolios, with eventual phase-outs for redundant products. But there’s no rush to rip and replace any gear just yet, as Jessica Scarpati reports on SearchUnifiedCommunications.com. As quoted in the article, Henry Dewing, a principal analyst at Forrester Research said “I don’t expect to see [Avaya CEO] Kevin Kennedy walk out on the day after the deal closes and say, ‘We’re no longer going to manufacture X, Y and Z products.’ …I think there will be incremental changes.”

But channel partners can still help Nortel customers get through the transition more smoothly, since those customers may be uncertain what move to make next, as analysts told Scarpati:

“Those organizations that work with VARs [value-added resellers] should really rely on their VARs to walk them through the process,” said Vanessa Alvarez, an industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

It’s unlikely there will be “any immediate threat” to Nortel products, meaning users should use this time to plan, said Zeus Kerravala, a senior vice president at Yankee Group.

“[Users should] do whatever they could to find out either from the VAR or from Avaya directly what stays and what goes because that’s an important part of the decision process. I wouldn’t make any large purchases right now,” he said. “Just stay the course, and as soon as you can, try to find out how these two product lines are going to be integrated.”

Avaya may also be offering valuable incentives for customers to shift from Nortel to Avaya products. Earlier this year, Avaya introduced a program, in effect until May 2010, offering Nortel partners an opportunity to earn an additional 5% on deals in which they sell Avaya products. But Lazar didn’t think Avaya would withdraw support for Nortel any time soon:

“I would suspect that Avaya will provide very attractive options for Nortel’s customers to think about migrating to Avaya systems,” Lazar said. “But they are constrained by the economy. Companies don’t have money to spend on new systems, so Avaya will need to support Nortel systems for a long time. I’d expect most of the cuts would come in project management and development.”

Nortel’s enterprise customers may also be feeling anxious about their routers and switches being supported by a telephony vendor, which is another opportunity for the VAR to step in and offer support or advice on where to go next.

Nortel answered the prayers of many of its channel partners today when it announced the inevitable. CEO Zafirovski is out.

Nortel put out a press release today announcing changes to its management team, board of directors and organizational structure.

Citing the sale of Nortel’s CDMA/LTE business to Ericsson, its agreement to sell its enterprise division to Avaya and the “successful reorganization” of Nortel’s other business units into standalone entities that it can sell off easily, Harry Pearce, Nortel’s board chairman said now is “a logical departure point” for Zafirovski. Not exactly a Mission Accomplished banner. But Pearce did have some nice things to say about the man who stood side-by-side with him during the biggest corporate collapse in the IT industry since the Dot-Com bubble burst nearly a decade ago.

Mike came to Nortel to transform this company. He made great progress on many fronts including addressing significant accounting and related legal issues; improving the quality of Nortel products and the company’s cost structure.  His ambitious vision helped shift the economic center of the company from legacy to growth investments.  It was unfortunate the transformation was derailed by a deteriorating economic climate and the company’s legacy cost structure. The operating improvements and strategic investments made during his tenure significantly contributed to the fact that Nortel’s businesses are so attractive to potential buyers today.

With that said, Pearce is out as chair of Nortel’s board. In fact, the board of directors is being chopped down from nine members to three. The three remaining board members will be John A. MacNaughton, Jalynn H. Bennett and David Richardson. Richardson will serve as the chair.

According to Richardson’s bio, he is a corporate accounting veteran with deep connections to Ernst & Young, Nortel’s bankruptcy monitor.  Since retiring from Ernst & Young as the managing partner of the firm’s corporate finance practice in 2002, Richardson has sat on a few corporate boards. He’s a the former chairman of the board of directors of Ernst and Young’s Canadian operation. He is currently the chairman of the board for Air Canada and is he also serves on the board (and chairs the audit committee) for ACE Aviation Holdings Inc, which owns Air Canada.

No CEO has been named to replace Zafirovski. Instead, most of Nortel’s remaining business units will report to Chief Restructuring Officer Pavi Binning. Nortel’s mergers and acquisitions teams will continue to report to Chief Strategy Officer George Riedel. A core “Corporate Group” has been established which will be responsible for the management of ongoing restructuring activities. It will be led by John Doolittle, Nortel’s now former treasurer.

All of these executives will report to the reduced board of directors, Ernst & Young and a new U.S. principal officer, who will run the Nortel companies who are currently in U.S. Chapter 11 proceedings. This principal officer hasn’t been named.

In its announcement of the deal, Avaya sent out signals that Nortel’s channel partners are a central focus of the transaction. Quoted in the press release, Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy said, “The addition of Nortel Enterprise Solutions will increase Avaya’s global scale, expand our channel partner network, and strengthen our world-class portfolio of products and services.” (Emphasis is mine.)

The press release also has supporting quotes from a couple of major telecoms, who resell Nortel gear. No doubt this is an attempt to send a signal to other Nortel partners that Avaya is committed to them.

The press release first quotes Stephane Boisvert, president of Bell Business Markets, the business communications division of Bell Canada and a major reseller of Avaya and Nortel. “Bell was the first major service provider to standardize on both Avaya and Nortel IP telephony solutions, and we are confident Avaya will continue to provide partners and customers with innovative business communications technologies and responsive customer support going forward.

Hanif Lalani, CEO of BT Global Services said in the release that BT plans to expand its channel relationship with Avaya globally over the next year and that the Nortel acquisition will strength this expansion plan.

Historically, Avaya’s reputation in the channel partner community isn’t exactly sterling. Carol Giles Neslund, Avaya’s vice president for the North American channel, recently told me her company is aware that it has a reputation among resellers for being difficult to do business with. She said Avaya is working aggressively to change that. Avaya’s growth strategy is focused centrally on building out its channel and recruiting Nortel partners has been a key part of that strategy.  Neslund told us that Avaya has recruited seven of Nortel’s ten largest partners since late last year.

I hope to get someone from Avaya on the phone toda to talk about the channel and also to talk about what the company’s plans are for Nortel’s data networking business, since Avaya isnt’ exactly known for being in that market.

Nortel competitors, such as Avaya, have been aggressively recruiting Nortel partners in recent months. You can expect that recruitment to ratchet up, especially if one of Nortel’s competitors acquires a Nortel business unit. After all, who knows Nortel’s customers better than its partners?

Also, if someone like Avaya or Siemens-Enterasys buys Nortel’s enterprise division, the buyer will certainly have plans to move those customers onto its own products sooner or later. That vendor will want channel partners who are familiar with its own products and Nortel’s products. Such expertise will be valuable as vendors look to help enterprises transition away from Nortel to their own products.