Jane Kawamura, chief technology officer for the InAAU and a manager at Hewlett-Packard Co. , said her understanding is that the new strategy also was meant to make Avaya's pricing more software-driven than hardware-driven.

Allan Sulkin, an analyst at TEQConsult Group in Hackensack, N.J., said he learned about the pricing changes from Avaya in January and added that the vendor still hasn't sufficiently explained some of the details to him.

The new pricing could significantly lower overall software costs for some customers, according to Sulkin. But overall, he said, the pricing scheme "sounds a lot like a weight-loss plan where the promoters say you'll lose 60 pounds but the average loss is only 8 ounces."