Avaya's $8.2bn private equity buyout could undermine customer confidence and strengthen its competitors, analyst firm Current Analysis warns in a new report. 

"The private investment companies bring little to nothing in the way of technical, product or personnel resources that would improve Avaya solutions in either the near or long term, and have not revealed a growth strategy that would benefit customers and partners," wrote Brian Riggs, research director for enterprise communications at Current Analysis.

Avaya accepted a $8.2bn bid from investment firms TPG Capital and Silver Lake Partners on Monday. But the company said that it will solicit proposals from other interested parties in the meantime.

Competitors including Cisco and Nortel are rumoured to have expressed interest in acquiring the enterprise telephony provider.

Riggs also suggested that Alcatel-Lucent could benefit from acquiring the company that was spun out of Lucent in 2000. 

The PG Capital and Silver Lake Partners acquisition seems primarily to be financially motivated. As a private company, Avaya is freed from disclosing its financial position and no longer faces pressure from investors to accelerate revenue growth.

"Taking Avaya private is driven in part by flat sales, limited profitability and flat to decreasing market share in telephony ports shipped. It is unclear how the buyout by Silver Lake and TPG Capital will remedy this situation," noted Briggs.

But customers could perceive the change in corporate organisation as a disadvantage because they are no longer able reliably to gauge the provider's financial stability and market momentum.

The lack of a technology vision, furthermore, could result in "demoralised employees, worried resellers and skittish customers".

Instead the move could be interpreted as a last ditch effort to turn the company round in the wake of increasing competition from Microsoft and Cisco.

Riggs urged customers to pressure the firm to ensure the future development of product lines.