Avaya Kicks Off New Fiscal Year With Americas International Sales & Partner Conference

• Avaya re-affirms commitment to a customer-centric, partner-enabled business model across the Americas International region
• Leverages 'The Power of We™' as it outlines Americas International business focus for 2012 and recognizes high performing channel partners for FY 2011 success

Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration solutions and services, today announced a continued focus and commitment to its channel partner model and the Americas International region as it welcomed Avaya Connect channel partners from Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America to its Annual Channel Partner Conference in Cancun, Mexico.
 
Celebrating the company's regional performance, John DiLullo, President, Avaya Americas International, thanked the company's channel partners for their continued commitment and support of the company's innovation and forward-looking strategy.
 
The communications and networking industry is at a crossroads where the rapid growth in the number of devices and applications are meeting changing user preferences and employee work-styles. The bottleneck for businesses is no longer access to information -- it is the ability to connect people together with the right information at the right time to make smarter decisions in real time.
 
Avaya continues to enhance business collaboration and communication by developing technologies that enable teams to work better together. Over the past year, Avaya focused on driving profitable growth and evolving as a company to deliver solutions, training, tools, programs and resources for its channel partners to exceed customer expectations.
 
Avaya also recognized and honored 14 channel partners in nine categories for excellence in 2011. Winners of the Avaya Americas International Channel Partner Awards for 2011 are:
 
Americas International Contact Center Partner of the Year

• Canada - Branttel Networks Inc.
• Latin America and the Caribbean - Trans Industrias Electrónicas, S.A.

Americas International SME Partner of the Year

• Canada - Bell Canada
• Latin America and the Caribbean - Claro Dominican Republic

 
Americas International Unified Communications Partner of the Year

• Canada - Unity Telecom Corporation
• Latin America and the Caribbean - First Tech Tecnología Ltda.

 
Americas International Networking Partner of the Year

• Canada - Combat Networks
• Latin America and the Caribbean - IKUSI México S.A. de C.V.

 
Americas International Services Partner of the Year

• Canada - TELUS Communications Inc.
• Latin America and the Caribbean - Telmart Tecnologías Em Comunicação Convergente Ltda.

 
Americas International Service Provider Partner of the Year

• Canada - TELUS Communications Inc.
• Latin America and the Caribbean - Consorcio Red Uno S.A. de C.V.

Americas International Partner Challenge Net New Award

• Canada - Branttel Networks Inc.
• Latin America and the Caribbean - Axede S.A.

 
Americas International Marketing Partner of the Year

• Canada - Unity Telecom Corporation
• Latin America and the Caribbean - Consultores en Teleinformática Empresarial S.A. de C.V.

Americas International Distributor of The Year

• Canada - Westcon Canada Systems Inc.
• Latin America and the Caribbean - Anixter International Inc.

Quotes"Avaya Connect channel partners are instrumental to our growth in this region and to helping deliver innovation and value to Avaya customers. The FY 2011 awards honor the partners who made investments and captured opportunities in key areas of growth for both their companies and for Avaya. They are well positioned for continued success." 
-- Roberto Ricossa, Channel and Marketing Director, Avaya Americas International
 
Rapidly changing technologies and rising infrastructure costs have made it more important than ever to make smart technology investments. Customers need solutions that increase productivity and simplify complexity -- that provide cost savings and maximize return on investment. This is what Avaya and its partners have been delivering and what we are committed to helping our customers realize -- faster, smarter, better technologies that enable communication and make collaboration more seamless.
-- John DiLullo, President, Avaya Americas International

Avaya bets on value over volume

CANCUN, MEXICO -- Avaya is in transition and it wants its channel partners to follow suit.

After completing the Nortel integration, the networking vendor has set its sights on recruiting more channel partners, especially in its Americas International region, which is made up of Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Avaya has increased investment dollars to both its channel and direct sales and is in full partner recruitment mode, executives said at the company's annual partner conference.

Avaya's senior vice-president of sales and marketing, Joel Hackney, didn't reveal any specifics about the channel investment nor how many channel partners Avaya is looking for, but said the company wants to replace current partners who are unable to transition away from only selling voice solutions.

“We're interested in recruiting new partners who are interested in bringing new value solutions in collaboration. Many are making this transition from voice to collaboration and we want to invest in them to help bring them to the new world of collaboration,” Hackney said.

In the year-plus since the integration of Nortel, Avaya has redefined itself as a collaboration company. Hackney told CDN that it's no longer a phone or IT company.

“We're now a technology company helping customers do faster collaboration and make better decisions. What was the purpose of the phone? It was to speed up collaboration. The only remaining competitive advantage left in business today is finding that idea from an employee, hearing it, getting a team together fast and make a decision on it. This is what we done on a base technological level,” Hackney said.

The direction will also mean channel program changes that will see channel partners rewarded more for delivering value-based solutions over straight volume selling.

“In the past if you sold a lot you'd get a favourable relationship and benefits from Avaya. Going forward, we're changing that. Those who bring in the most value helping customers collaborate faster and smarter will have more financial rewards,” Hackney said.

Hackney was unable to provide any more specifics on these financial rewards, but CDN will be getting more details on this new development during this conference.

Avaya has also turned itself into a more channel friendly organizations because of the Nortel acquisition. John DiLullo, Avaya's president of the Americas International, said that Avaya before Nortel had only 40 per cent channel sales; the rest was direct. With Nortel, Avaya now has between 75 to 80 per cent channel sales.

“We needed to be a more engaged with the channel,” he said.

In the SMB, Avaya will only conduct business through the channel, DiLullo added.

“The belief was that the channel used to be an extension of the manufacturer's sales force. Now, the channel is an extension of the customer's IT department and you need to have a lot of touch to have success in this market. We're not looking back,” DiLullo said.

More on the Aurix Acquisition

Hackney had more information on Avaya's recent acquisition of the U.K.-based Aurix, a vendor of speech analytics and audio data mining technology. The company will be part of new wholly-owned subsidiary of Avaya.

Hackney said speech recognition technology will be a key differentiator going forward in business especially in call centres. This acquisition will bring additional capabilities to Avaya's collaboration products but will increase the process speeds by 24 times. “We're a fit for purpose company and we're driving collaboration, and speech is key technology of that. We needed to build on that,” he said.

Could Avaya be the Apple of enterprises?

Avaya, one of the top players in the Asia Pacific region in unified communications (UC) and contact centre (CC) solutions business, seems set to turn a new leaf.

Addressing about 200 representatives of Avaya's Asia Pacific (AP) channel partners in Bangkok on Wednesday (19 October), Joel Hackney, Avaya's senior vice president, global sales and marketing, and president, field operations, tomtomed the arrival of a 'New Avaya'.

What is this new Avaya? According to Hackney, the 'New Avaya' brand promises "faster, smarter, and better" collaboration to get the best ideas first in the market. Avaya stands for the power of team work, the power of we, he said, referring to the "Accelerating Growth: The Power of We" motto of the Bangkok conference.

"We cannot fall in love with the formula of the past," he said. He pointed out that what worked for Avaya in the past should not make the company and its partners complacent. Hackney says Avaya now has to focus on winning solutions-video collaboration, mobile collaboration and network simplification.

To his channel partners, the new Avaya's message is simple-don't sell products, sell value. "Value selling makes more money any day," Hackney said. And stay motivated, he told Avaya's channel partners.

At the same event, Brett Shockley, senior vice president, corporate development and strategy, Avaya, spoke of "innovation as the key to change customer conversation". One of the company's key innovations is the SIP-based Avaya Aura that provides one click, no apps required video service. Besides Aura, the company came out with nearly 60 innovative products last year, so much so that its channel partners found it difficult to cope with the new releases.

Alan Baratz, senior vice president and president, global communications solutions, Avaya, said in Bangkok that three years ago, Avaya took the leadership path in its industry and made a bold move from VoIP to SIP. The strategy has worked for Avaya as it facilitates true 'UC'-it provides real time communications and reduces the total cost of ownership.

Rumours about Avaya IPO?

Avaya made steady progress as a company (in 2007, a combination of Silver Lake Partners and the Texas Pacific Group paid $8.2 billion for the company) but after acquiring the networking hardware division of Nortel in 2009, it took the game to a new level.

After the Nortel acquisition, the biggest hurdle for Avaya was overcoming Nortel customers' fears that stemmed from a year of uncertainty they faced due to Nortel's bankruptcy. That hurdle now seems to have been crossed.

Avaya, channel partners, expect strong growth in 2012 in APAC

Though the world is grappling with the fear of being hit by another cycle of economic disaster, Avaya and its channel partners are hopeful of strong growth in 2012 in Asia.

Avaya is a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services, and is one of the top players in the region in unified communications (UC) and contact centre (CC) solutions business.

Addressing about 200 representatives of Avaya's Asia Pacific (APAC) channel partners in Bangkok on Wednesday (19 October), Francois Lancon, president, Asia Pacific, Avaya, said, "In 2011, we saw business confidence returning in Asia Pacific in a big way, just as our channel partners had predicted this time last year." Lancon was referring to the survey results of its channel partners that were made public at the conference in Bangkok to kick off the company's 2012 financial year.

Prior to arriving at the conference venue, the delegates were asked (between 13-18 October) to comment on the general business environment and their sentiments for Avaya's business segment of the economy. It turns out that 90 percent of the respondents predict a stronger year for their business in 2012; 47 percent are forecasting strong single and double digit growth.

"Based on these results, the market looks set to be buoyant for our business and that of our channel partners across APAC in 2012," Lancon said. In APAC, Avaya is no 1 or no 2 in the UC and CC solutions market in the region, according to him.

Strong performance expected

"2011 was a year of success," he said during a presentation in the conference. "We had a great performance against a tough 2H (second half of the year) environment-there was Q4 market slowdown, there were exchange rate fluctuations, a natural disaster in Japan and capital restraint in India."

In the new financial year, Lancon said that he expected 10 to 11 per cent growth in China, India and Asean markets and about 4 per cent growth in Japan. "The Euro crisis will have an impact on APAC but recovery is expected in 2012," he said.

There are reasons why Lancon feels gung-ho about Asia. "APAC has a trade surplus," he said. "Fifty percent of foreign exchange reserves are in APAC, and APAC is relying more on domestic cycles, led by China, and is no more primarily dependent on demand from the West. In countries like India, the market has strong access to capital. All these factors promise to give us another good year in APAC."

FSI predicted to be biggest growth vertical

along with healthcare, hospitality and education are anyway Avaya's main pillars of business growth.Interestingly, as the survey results showed, multinationals are not going to drive the investment in business communications solutions. Growth is going to come from midsize companies and large national enterprises.

According to the Avaya survey results, verticals investing most in business communications solutions are financial services and insurance (FSI), telecom and IT, and government. These three,

Technology investments that help drive customer service-and therefore support customer retention- and productivity remain key strategies for Avaya customers.

The consumerisation of IT and how best to leverage pubic and/or private cloud environments to enhance communications also scored highly with respondents of the survey.

Avaya Acquires Aurix

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services, today announced it has acquired Aurix, a global provider of speech analytics and audio data mining technology. A UK-based company, Aurix is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avaya. 
 
Aurix's patented technology enables real-time identification, search and data mining of large volumes of audio and audio-visual material. Built on scalable, open architecture, the company's applications integrate with Avaya Aura® as well as applications from other vendors. Aurix's solutions help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of customer service and collaboration events, as well as support compliance requirements and expand business intelligence. 
 
The technologies will be incorporated into Avaya's Contact Center and Unified Communications portfolios. 
 
Supporting Quotes: 
"The value of document search engines is widely understood. There's another dimension of data that is largely untapped, however, and that is the information exchanged through spoken interactions. Aurix's technology will help enable Avaya's customers to quickly find the interactions that can impact their ability to attain high customer satisfaction and increase revenue generation. The analysis of these interactions can drive enhancements in processes that advance their business objectives." 
Brett Shockley, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, Strategy, and Innovation, Avaya
 
"Voice interactions represent a vast resource of untapped knowledge. Aurix has focused on building easy-to-use solutions to extract this intelligence to create competitive advantage. The combination of Avaya Aura and Aurix's speech analytics solutions offer a number of opportunities to create business and customer value that we look forward to accelerating through this acquisition. Our common approach of using an open architecture and focusing on the user experience makes this a good fit for both of us." 
Peter Rogers, CEO, Aurix
 
"Avaya is bringing a robust set of analytic tools into its mainstream products that will add an important component to the quality of service that Avaya delivers to their enterprise customers and to their customers in turn."
Dan Miller, Senior Analyst, Opus Research
 
Tags: Avaya, Aurix, Avaya Aura, unified communications, contact center, customer service, collaboration, audio search engine, speech analytics, audio data mining
 
About Avaya:Avaya is a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, providing unified communications, contact centers, data solutions and related services to companies of all sizes around the world.  
 
About Aurix:Aurix is a global provider of phonetic speech search and analytics technology. Working with a network of technology partners, service delivery professionals and resellers, Aurix provides solutions that help improve efficiency and generate business intelligence. 
 
Certain statements contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "should" or "will" or other similar terminology. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While we believe these expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections are reasonable, such forward looking statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. These and other important factors may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. For a list and description of such risks and uncertainties, please refer to Avaya's filings with the SEC that are available at www.sec.gov . Avaya disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Dell saves millions on conference calls

COMPUTER giant Dell has saved "multiple millions of dollars a month" by conducting conference calls on its corporate network instead of using traditional telephone services.

Like most multinational organisations, the company has a large pool of employees who work closely with their overseas counterparts.

According to Dell global chief information officer Robin Johnson, workers typically generate 35-40 million minutes each month on conference calls.

"We pushed our entire conference calling on to our own MPLS (Multi-protocol Label Switching) network," Mr Johnson told The Australian during his visit to Sydney last week. "I can't tell you the rates, but we saved a ton of money . . . it's in the multiple millions of dollars a month."

Dell employs about 100,000 people around the world.

The company installed software by Avaya and uses British Telecom as its sole global conference call provider.

Dell employees engaged in conference calls are given a unique 10-digit phone number by British Telecom.

"You make a call and a British Telecom operator will connect everyone, but the network is Dell's," Mr Johnson said.

He declined to reveal the project cost, but said it took six months to deploy from the third quarter last year. "We had some teething problems, don't get me wrong. But the (voice) quality is great," he said.

"I don't think anyone can notice the difference any more."

Mr Johnson said many CIOs were unaware how much it cost per minute to use the MPLS network for voice calls, nor put a price on conference calls.

He said the migration was "simple" and that "anyone" could do it. "I haven't met anyone else who's done it, but I'm sure there are a few," he said.

Like many CIOs, Mr Johnson is under constant pressure to realign costs, but urged tech executives to re-examine and fine-tune their current business process. Using Dell's conference call example, he said those savings would be ploughed back into the business and were likely to support innovative projects.

"You've got to be re-examining what you do today, not just talking about what's new," he said. "When you change what you do today, the money being freed up can be put into other services or be invested in innovation."

Mr Johnson was well aware of Dell's energy consumption bill. Three and a half years ago, the vendor thought it had to build a new data centre.

Using virtualisation and modular data centre technologies, the company avoided having to spend $US350m building the facility.

He said two data centres at Dell's headquarters in Austin, Texas consumed "40 per cent of all power" on campus.

The company is on a mission to slash $US4 billion ($4.07bn) in costs over two years, a target first unveiled in 2009.

Sonexis Technology, Inc. Solution Now Rated "Avaya Compliant"

MONROEVILLE, Pa. - Sonexis Technology, Inc., a leading provider of on-premise audio and web conferencing platforms, today announced that ConferenceManager 10.0 is compliant with a key Internet Protocol (IP) telephony solution from Avaya, a global provider of business collaboration systems, software and services.
 
Sonexis ConferenceManager is a feature-rich solution, well-suited to the small to medium enterprise (SME), which provides a high quality collaboration environment to customers wanting to implement a secure, cost-effective solution for audio and web conferencing. Through the use of ConferenceManager, SME customers can benefit from the flexibility and enhanced security features offered by the solution and achieve cost savings over traditional conferencing service providers.
 
The application now is compliance-tested by Avaya for compatibility with: Avaya IP Office Release 7.0 using PRI, SIP, and H.323 trunk interfaces. Avaya IP Office is the company's flagship communications solution for small and mid-sized businesses.
 
"Membership in the Avaya DevConnect program will assist Sonexis in delivering a comprehensive and secure collaboration solution for IP Office customers," said Dan Watkins, executive vice president with Sonexis. "The successful testing of ConferenceManager through the DevConnect program provides SME customers with a robust and secure collaboration solution that can be seamlessly deployed within the IP Office ecosystem while preserving existing investments in telephony and data infrastructure. Sonexis is pleased to provide Avaya customers with another option for enhanced audio and web collaboration." 
 
As a Gold member of the program, Sonexis Technology, Inc. is eligible to submit products for compatibility testing by the Avaya Solution Interoperability and Test Lab. There, a team of Avaya engineers develops a comprehensive test plan for each application to verify whether it is Avaya compliant. Doing so enables businesses to confidently add best-in-class capabilities to their network without having to replace their existing infrastructure—speeding deployment of new applications and reducing both network complexity and implementation costs.   
 
"Sonexis Technology's collaboration offering for the small-to-medium size enterprise marketplace leverages the built-in audio conferencing capabilities of Avaya IP Office and will provide greater capability and choice for Avaya IP Office customers," said Eric Rossman, vice president, developer relations, Avaya. "We are pleased to add Sonexis ConferenceManager to our portfolio of DevConnect compliance-tested products as another option available to our IP Office customers for audio and web collaboration."

ClearOne Unified Communications Conferencing Solutions Now Rated Avaya Compliant

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - ClearOne (NASDAQ: CLRO), a global communications and entertainment solutions company, today announced that several of its unified communications and professional conferencing solutions are compliant with key IP telephony solutions from Avaya Inc., a global leader in business collaboration systems, software and services.
 
The CHAT® 50, CHAT® 150 USB and CHATAttach™ 150 are speakerphones which enhance the UC experience in the executive office or small conference room. The INTERACT™ AT is a complete UC conference room solution delivering exceptional audio performance at an affordable price. These applications are now compliance-tested by Avaya for compatibility with Avaya one-X® Communicator. Additionally, ClearOne's Converge® Pro VH20, which brings HD Conference™ audio quality to converged data/voice communication systems, is now compliance-tested by Avaya for compatibility with Avaya Aura® Communication Manager and Avaya Aura® Session Manager.
 
ClearOne is a member of the Avaya DevConnect program-an initiative to develop, market and sell innovative third-party products that interoperate with Avaya technology and extend the value of a company's investment in its network.
 
As a Gold member of the program, ClearOne is eligible to submit products for compatibility testing by the Avaya Solution Interoperability and Test Lab. There, a team of Avaya engineers develops a comprehensive test plan for each application to verify whether it is Avaya compliant. Doing so enables businesses to confidently add best-in-class capabilities to their network without having to replace their existing infrastructure-speeding deployment of new applications and reducing both network complexity and implementation costs. 
 
"Development partners like ClearOne are helping Avaya promote open standards and interoperability among its enterprise customers," said Eric Rossman, vice president, developer relations, Avaya. "Utilizing their innovative technology, ClearOne promotes a truly collaborative communications environment where users can interact and share information over a world-class UC conferencing system." 

Streamcore Selected for Membership in Avaya DevConnect Program

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - Streamcore, the provider of WAN 2.0 assurance solutions to enable reliable delivery of business-critical Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) over any cloud, today announced it has been selected by Avaya, a global provider of business collaboration systems, software and services, for membership in the Avaya DevConnect program. 
 
Streamcore solutions provide enterprises with innovative real-time monitoring, supervision, reporting and advanced performance control for real-time communications such as VoIP and room-based or desktop videoconferencing. Streamcore products can improve network performance and help ensure the success of IP telephony or unified communications and collaboration deployments.   
 
The Avaya DevConnect Program promotes the development, compliance-testing and co-marketing of innovative third-party products that are compatible with standards-based Avaya solutions. Member organizations have expertise in a broad range of technologies – including IP telephony, contact centers and mobile applications – helping companies extend the value of multivendor networks and transform voice into an intelligent business application that delivers true value to the bottom line.
 
"Membership in Avaya's developer community will help us deliver combined solutions with exceptional quality to end-users," said Frederic Hediard, Streamcore's vice president of product strategy. "Building on Avaya resources, we can deliver a compliance-tested solution to the market that helps businesses manage the challenges associated with the growth of real-time communication and collaboration traffic over the network." 
 
The Avaya DevConnect program currently includes thousands of software and hardware developer companies, integrators, service providers and customers. Members have created a broad array of innovative solutions tested for Avaya compliance, including natural language speech recognition applications, wireless services, specialized computer telephony integration and reporting capabilities, and applications tailored for specific vertical industries. Through the DevConnect program, Avaya provides a number of platforms and interfaces for member companies to develop with and enhance.
 
"Developer partners like Streamcore are helping Avaya users maximize their investment in unified communications and collaboration," said Eric Rossman, vice president, developer relations, Avaya. "With its monitoring and performance tools supporting network resources, Streamcore solutions can help promote successful deployments for Avaya’s unified communication and collaboration solutions." 
 
As a member of the DevConnect program, companies have access to a wide range of support from Avaya, including technical resources and training.  There are three levels of membership – Registered, Gold and Platinum – each entailing progressive levels of marketing and sales involvement. Free Registered membership is available to anyone interested in designing Avaya-compatible solutions. Streamcore is a gold member of the Avaya DevConnect program. Gold-level members and platinum members must meet rigorous Avaya criteria for customer satisfaction, product support, business operations, marketing and sales.  
 

Polycom Unveils New Dual-Mode Conference Phone

Oct 07, 2011 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) -- Polycom, Inc., a provider of standards-based unified communications (UC), unveiled a new conference phone that works with both analog networks and Voice over IP (VoIP) environments.
Polycom reported that its SoundStation Duo addresses a demand among organizations that need to upgrade or expand their existing circuit-switched networks, but are hesitant to purchase phones that will become obsolete once they move to VoIP.
Paul Waadevg, principal consultant at Frost & Sullivan said, "The analog to IP transition is progressing as expected. IP systems accounted for 79.5 percent of 2010 market revenues and the share of analog revenue is expected to shrink to less than 7 percent at the end of 2017." "Polycom SoundStation Duo offers unparalleled investment protection for organizations trying to straddle the demands of their current analog network versus the near-term prospects of having to invest in VoIP equipment," said Cullen Childress, vice president of Product Management at Polycom. "And with our new web configuration tool, we're making it easier than ever for an organization to administer its Polycom IP phones. This is great news for those small- to medium-sized businesses that have the desire to join enterprises in the VoIP migration but that lack the budget for dedicated IT resources. Now the industry has a conference phone built for today and outfitted for tomorrow."

Avaya Video Solutions Aid Early Cancer Detection Research Collaboration

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services, today announced that Canary Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the goal of identifying cancer early, is facilitating research collaboration spanning disciplines and institutions with the help of Avaya Video Conferencing Solutions (AVCS).

Avaya videoconferencing endpoints at Canary Foundation and the Stanford University School of Medicine run off of Avaya Aura® unified communications core platform. The system’s High Definition (HD) video helps team members collaborate better by providing clear visuals of presenters and detailed research images and demonstrations.

The Avaya Video Conferencing Solution (AVCS) enables researchers at Canary Foundation and Canary Center at Stanford broaden their research network, reduce travel, expand real-time discussion, and facilitate visual presentations of cancer research results. Canary Foundation receives numerous grants that require monthly or bi-monthly reviews and inspections, and the Avaya Video Conferencing Solution (AVCS) allows members of the Canary Center at Stanford to meet grant compliance requirements efficiently and protect funding for critical research.

The organization is working with Avaya and others to enable additional researchers and institutions to participate in sessions using videoconferencing clients, desktop units and room-based systems from multiple videoconferencing system manufacturers.
      
The Avaya Video Conferencing Solution (AVCS) consists of a suite of software, hardware, user endpoints, collaboration applications and backend infrastructure. AVCS helps improve collaboration by providing HD video for a wide variety of uses across the enterprise, including traditional room systems as well as employees at their desk or away from the office. Avaya Video Conferencing Solution (AVCS) is designed with open standards and bandwidth efficiency and offers advanced administrative capabilities to optimize deployment, management and monitoring of voice and video applications.

Supporting Quotes: 
"Canary Foundation has set 2015 as the date by when we aim to deliver on our vision of simple, effective early detection cancer tests. The faster and more cost-effective the means that we can share research with our broad-based team, the closer we get to our goal. Avaya's video solutions help Canary Foundation and our research team save precious time and money and provide the quality we need to see minute detail in video formats."  
Don Listwin, founder, Canary Foundation
 
"We view a lot of imaging presentations in our research. It's important for the collaborators to be able to see the details while the presenter points out critical areas. The video quality is great and the system is very easy to use – even for a novice like me." 
Sharon Pitteri, PHD, Canary Center at Stanford

Avaya Acquires Sipera

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - Avaya today announced it has acquired Sipera, a worldwide provider of Unified Communications (UC) solutions, including Session Border Control (SBC) functionality and a range of UC security applications. Sipera will become a fully integrated part of Avaya. 
 
Sipera strengthens Avaya's UC portfolio with a set of fit-for-purpose, enterprise-class SBC capabilities for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking that offers customers and channel partners flexibility, security and value. The company's open, standards-based solutions work in both Avaya and non-Avaya networks. Combined with Avaya Aura®, Sipera's solutions will provide customers with secure VoIP, SIP trunks, videoconferencing, cloud-based communications, instant messaging, and collaboration tools for workers in any location using any business or consumer device.
 
Sipera provides application-layer security that is intuitive, easy-to-manage and can lower the total cost of ownership of UC and Contact Center deployments. Security features include a patent-pending remote worker solution that helps deploy VPN-less solutions and advanced toll fraud protection.    
 
Quotes:"Sipera's broad portfolio of open, enterprise-focused security technologies strongly align with our own Avaya Aura unified communications architecture. Together, we will help customers simplify deployment, management and maintenance of secure, multi-vendor UC and contact center environments while providing them with greater flexibility to support remote and mobile employees using the device that best suits their needs." 
Dr. Alan Baratz, Senior Vice President and President, Global Communications Solutions, Avaya
 
"Integration of our solutions with Avaya Aura is a significant milestone in the evolution of unified communications. With the combined offerings, users enjoy rich, responsive communication experiences that span multiple channels, applications, devices and networks. These communications incorporate security and compliance features that ensure mission-critical information and resources are safeguarded. Together, our solutions simplify and streamline deployment and management of enterprise UC, improving communications flexibility, accelerating user adoption, and maximizing return on investment."    
Jim Timmer, COO, Sipera
 
"Kelsey-Seybold Clinic is Houston's first and longest standing Accountable Care Organization. Kelsey-Seybold is home to more than 370 physicians providing more than 50 medical specialties throughout a network of 20 Houston-area clinics. Robust communication capabilities and security of our integrated voice and data solutions were key considerations in our selection of Sipera's technology with Avaya's contact center and unified communications solutions. We are excited that this relationship is becoming a permanent one."
Martin Littmann, Director – Information Technology, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic

Avaya to Showcase Cloud Solutions at Oracle OpenWorld 2011

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – Avaya, a global leader in business communications and collaboration, today announced that it will showcase four cloud solutions at Oracle OpenWorld 2011, the world's premier learning event for Oracle customers, developers and partners.
 
At the event, Avaya will demonstrate how it can deliver always-on, real-time cloud solutions that are scalable, reliable and easy to deploy and manage. The solutions will feature a suite of Avaya virtualized applications running on Oracle servers and being supported by the Avaya Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture (VENA). Avaya VENA is a standards-based enterprise-wide virtualization architecture that simplifies the network, streamlines the deployment of cloud-based services and improves the delivery of always-on content.
 
Live demonstrations at Oracle OpenWorld will include:

• Unified communications as a cloud-based service. Avaya will showcase an open, virtualized Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) solution that unifies and simplifies communications through features such as presence, personal call attendant, find me / follow me, unified messaging, and HD video conferencing. A mobile client with multi-party click-to-call conferencing, office caller ID, visual contacts, instant messaging and presence will also be demonstrated.
• WLAN as a cloud-based service. Avaya will demonstrate how its unique 'split-plane' architecture enables the seamless scaling of wireless traffic without the cost and complexity of an overlay network. It enables the  wireless control plane to become a virtual machine (VM) in the cloud, managing access points and switches in the enterprise while integrating all wireless application traffic (data plane) into the existing campus Ethernet network. This allows enterprises to be well positioned for the explosive growth of high bandwidth wireless applications.
• vMotion over Avaya VENA using Virtualization Provisioning Service (VPS). Avaya will move a unified communications virtual machine from one physical Oracle server to another without impacting the end user experience. The appropriate port profile (QoS, ACL) and VLAN are applied to the edge port of the new server before the VM move is completed, ensuring the transition from server to server is seamless.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. Oracle's thin client will be on display, accessing management applications in a virtualized data center in real-time to perform VM moves and other administrative tasks.

Come visit Avaya at Oracle OpenWorld 2011 – from October 2-6, 2011 – in the Game Zone, located in Moscone South.