Belden Inc. Selected for Membership in Avaya DevConnect Program

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Belden Inc. (NYSE:BDC), a global leader in signal transmission solutions for mission-critical applications, today announced it has been selected by Avaya , a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, for membership in the Avaya DevConnect program.

Belden and its Hirschmann brand offers a comprehensive line of industrial-grade Ethernet switches, routers and security devices for use in harsh environmental and mission-critical networking applications. These devices complement Avaya's switching, routing and security products to offer a highly tailored solution for harsh environments such as manufacturing or transportation. As a result, companies can be assured that their networks operate at optimal performance.
 
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 data networking, IP telephony, contact centers and mobility 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 build our business by serving customers more efficiently and effectively within the industrial market segment," said Mike Miclot, vice president, marketing for Belden's Industrial Solutions Division. "By working more closely with Avaya to deliver compliance-tested solutions to the market, we are able to reduce network complexity, improve security and reliability, and speed time to deployment so that businesses can more quickly realize a benefit to their bottom line."
 
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.
 
"Technology partners like Belden are helping Avaya extend the reach of its networking solutions into rugged environments such as manufacturing plants, substations, and transportation infrastructure," said Eric Rossman, vice president, developer relations, Avaya. "Hirschmann's environmentally hardened networking switches, routers, and security devices deliver mission-critical networking solutions to Avaya customers in the most demanding environments. We are pleased to continue adding to our open system architecture ecosystem."
 
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. Gold-level members and Platinum members must meet rigorous Avaya criteria for customer satisfaction, product support, business operations, marketing and sales. Belden Inc. is a Gold member of the Avaya DevConnect program.
 

Avaya Goes After Cisco With New Ethernet Switches

Avaya is updating its Ethernet switch portfolio with six new models designed to bring the capabilities of its Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture (VENA) to the edge of the campus network. The additions to the Ethernet Routing Switch (ERS) 4000 portfolio offer plug-and-play capabilities for IP phones, quality of service (QoS) management, and support for both standard and enhanced Power over Ethernet (PoE and PoE+). The company says its Stackable Chassis technology can handle almost three times more traffic than competing solutions while consuming 36% less energy and offering a 40% lower total cost of ownership. An additional 25% to 40% power savings, without traffic interruption, can be achieved by "dimming" the network during off-peak hours with its Energy Saver functionality.

The new switches are another chapter in its VENA strategy, says Avaya, offering both tactical and strategic advantages. Tactically, the switches allow the company to compete better in the enterprise, and strategically, the use of its chipsets future-proofs the products, allowing the addition of capabilities such as virtualization and extending the life of the switches to seven to 10 years.

Tactically, this is a straightforward mid-range, high-performance, stackable switch announcement with PoE+ and Small Form-Factor Pluggable Plus (SFP+) support, says Rohit Mehra, director, enterprise communications infrastructure, IDC. "With some good QoS and, more importantly, [Unified Communications]-related integration capabilities, this will give Avaya customers a reason to look at both its voice and data portfolios." Strategically, he says, this will improve Avaya's value proposition with enterprise IT in terms of being a supplier that provides value through better integration of voice and data networking solutions. Also, from a strategic standpoint, this strengthens Avaya VENA architecture across the enterprise by adding another platform that participates in the virtual services fabric.

The timing is also significant, says Avaya, because a number of Cisco products are about to be discontinued so customers are evaluating different options. While it believes it also fares well against Juniper and HP, the company says Cisco is the only other vendor that can provide a full communications infrastructure, so that's where it sees the biggest opportunity.

Last quarter, the Ethernet switch market slowed down to 7.1% sequential growth after an "exceptional recovery" in the previous year, reports IDC. Second-quarter 10 Gbit Ethernet switch revenue increased 22.6% year over year due to continued adoption in data centers and campus core deployments. Cisco continues to dominate, accounting for 63.4% of the Ethernet switch (Layer 2/3) market share in the second quarter of 2011 and 73.2% of the 10 Gbit Ethernet segment.

Mehra says Avaya and Cisco are both major players within the UC/VoIP infrastructure space. "While Cisco's portfolio has spanned both the voice/UC and data networking markets for quite some time, Avaya, for the first time, is directly leveraging its voice/UC integration capabilities on the network switching side. At minimum, I expect existing Avaya customers to take a closer look at its data networking portfolio so they can benefit from the transition to a converged infrastructure."

Avaya Names U.S. Channel Partners of the Year

The Venetian Hotel - Las Vegas, NV – Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services, today announced its U.S. Channel Partners of the Year for 2011. The announcement was made here today at the Avaya U.S. Sales and Partner Conference. 

 

The following Avaya Connect Channel Partners were recognized during the Partner Plenary session:

 

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  Enterprise Partner of the Year: NACR
• Greatest Growth in Acquiring New Enterprise Customers: Imagine
• Highest Overall Revenue from New Enterprise Customers: Integration Partners
• SME Partner of the Year: Synectic
• Data Partner of the Year: Carousel Industries
• Services Partner of the Year: Arrow S3
• Service Provider of the Year: AT&T

 
Quotes:"We congratulate the Avaya U.S. Channel Partners of the Year for their focused efforts on building their business and delivering customer value. Their success is our success, and truly exemplifies what we mean by "The Power of We." 
Steve Fitz, Vice President, U.S. Sales, Avaya
 
"The success of our U.S. Channel Partners of the Year is, in part, reflective of their close alignment with the strategy, training and programs Avaya put in place to help them be successful. Their commitment to Avaya is unequivocally applauded and fully matched by our commitment to them."
Karl Soderlund, Vice President, U.S. Channel Sales, Avaya 

Logitech Selected for Membership in Avaya DevConnect Program

• Products from Logitech and LifeSize, a division of Logitech, are compatible with key Avaya unified communications (UC) solutions

 
FREMONT, Calif. - Logitech 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. Additionally, several of Logitech's unified communications (UC) peripherals are now compliant with key UC solutions from Avaya. 
 
Logitech's enterprise-class peripherals help businesses take full advantage of the communications platforms and solutions they've deployed by creating the best possible experience for users. In today's new anytime, anywhere office, peripherals play a critical function in equipping the modern workforce with the products they need to be efficient and effective in any environment. Logitech UC peripherals—including the B525, B910 and B990 HD webcams; BSP420-M and BSP420 USB speakerphones (US/Canada only); BH870 wireless Bluetooth headset (US/Canada only), BH970 wireless mono DECT headset (US/Canada only) and B530 USB headset — now are compliance-tested by Avaya for compatibility with Avaya one-X® Communicator. 
 
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 mobility 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. 
 
As a Platinum member of the program, Logitech 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. 
 
"In conjunction with our LifeSize division, we're proud to have a fully Avaya compliant, end-to-end communications portfolio – supporting our customers from the desktop to the meeting room," said Eric Kintz, vice president and general manager of Logitech for Business. "Broad interoperability with enterprise vendors is a core component of Logitech's strategy – we know our products need to seamlessly work with whatever platforms our business customers have deployed in order to deliver the best possible user experience. By joining Avaya's DevConnect program and testing our UC peripherals, we're enabling our joint customers to maximize the benefits of their communications infrastructure." 
 
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. 
 
"Development partners like Logitech help ensure that our customers have access to leading enterprise peripherals — for both the desktop and meeting room — optimized to bring out the best our UC platform has to offer," said Eric Rossman, vice president, Developer Relations, Avaya. "Together, Logitech and Avaya are equipping the modern workforce with the tools necessary to be successful, and we look forward to continuing to drive interoperability and ease-of-use with our 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. Gold-level members and Platinum members must meet rigorous Avaya criteria for customer satisfaction, product support, business operations, marketing and sales. Logitech is a Platinum member of the Avaya DevConnect program. For more information on Logitech business solutions, please visit our blog or website.