Olsen, who is an IT manager at Universa Healthcare in Buffalo, said D'Ambrosio and Avaya face some areas of improvement. "Avaya is good in development and the support of the products they have, but as for the paperwork and billing, they leave a lot to be desired."

"I'm very enthusiastic about Lou D'Ambrosio taking the reins at Avaya," said Bill Moore, communications manager at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The museum is an Avaya user. "Lou is a dynamic leader and has a reputation for seeing things through the customers' eyes. I believe that Lou has the qualities needed to turn the company around."

Sulkin said Avaya's greatest strength is its product portfolio and its professional services, even though services revenues have not recently grown fast enough. Avaya's biggest weakness, which D'Ambrosio must confront, is that Avaya and other networking equipment makers "have underestimated Cisco, which has hurt everybody."

Sulkin said Avaya has also failed to describe its business in ways that are understood by the investment community and financial analysts. "Avaya is undervalued by the street in that there are very few people ... who have a clue about the business Avaya's in," he said.

While Cisco is a competitor, Cisco handles data networks, whereas Avaya focuses on voice networks. "Avaya has the strongest voice networking products and the best sales channel. They have almost no weaknesses. But Avaya needs to position itself better," Sulkin said.