Aastra Technologies Limited, formerly headquartered in Concord, Ontario, Canada, made products and systems for accessing communication networks, including the Internet. Its products included residential and business telephone terminals, screen telephones, Enterprise private branch exchanges (PBX), network access terminals and high-quality digital video encoders, decoders and gateways. Residential telephone equipment was sold in the United States as Bell equipment by Sonecor brand, which represented Southern New England Telecommunications.

Quick Facts Company type, Traded as ...
Aastra Technologies Limited
Company typePublic company
TSX: AAH
IndustryTelecommunications
Founded1983
Defunct2014 (2014)
FateAcquired by Mitel Networks Corporation
HeadquartersConcord, Ontario, Canada
Key people
Francis Shen, Chairman & Co-CEO
Anthony Shen, Co-CEO, President, & COO
RevenueIncrease$834 million CAD (2009) [1]
Increase$45 million CAD (2009) [1]
Number of employees
1,690 (2008)[2]
Websitewww.aastra.com
Close
Thumb
A VoIP handset manufactured by Aastra

Mitel Networks Corporation announced on November 11, 2013, that it would acquire Aastra Technologies Ltd. in a stock and cash deal valued at about $400 million.[3]

History

In 1983, Francis Shen and Hugh Scholaert bought an engineering consulting company, founding Aastra in Toronto in 1983. The company provided services to the defense industry. In 1993, the company started to specialise in telecommunications.[4] Aastra went public in Canada in 1996.

In 2000, Aastra acquired the assets of Nortel Networks Access Solutions Division including the rights to manufacture phones under the Nortel name.[citation needed] Then, in 2001, Aastra acquired Lucent Technologies' Digital Video business[5] and Ericsson Cable Modem. Aastra acquired Nortel CVX & CSG Division in 2002 and the ASCOM PBX System Division in 2003.

In 2005, 75% of Aastra Technologies' sales were made in Europe, following the purchase that year of the Germany-based the EADS Enterprise Telephony Business and the DeTeWe Telecommunication Systems business. Its other sales shares that year included 17% in the United States, and only 5% in Canada.[1]

In 2008, Aastra acquired the enterprise PBX division of Ericsson,[6][7] best known for MD110/MX-ONE Telephony Switch.

In January 2014, Mitel completed its acquisition of Aastra, which has been announced in November 2013.[8] Mitel lists the fate of former Aastra products on its website.[9]

Awards

In 2008, Aastra received Internet Telephony's Best of Show Award for 2007 for Best Large Enterprise Solution.[10]

See also

References

Wikiwand in your browser!

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.

Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.