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 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.

Avaya Positioned as a Leader in Analyst Firm's Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications

Basking Ridge, NJ – Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services, today announced it has been positioned as a Leader in the recently published 2011 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications*. In the report, Gartner finds that "the overall UC market has matured and evolved significantly in 2011. The most notable change has been the shift in emphasis from broad UC portfolios toward fuller UC suites. Other important factors influencing the market were the convergence of cloud and on-premises UC functions, the increased role of consumer products and the continued influence of mobility." Avaya's UC Portfolio: Avaya’s flagship UC suite for mid-to-large size enterprises, Avaya Aura®, offers voice, video, conferencing, messaging, presence services, and session management, enabling centralized management and administration, plus integration and interoperability with systems and applications from Avaya and other vendors. In the past year, Avaya also launched the groundbreaking, Avaya Flare® Experience – a unique tool for end-users that brings together the range of communications people regularly use today – voice, video, conferencing, email, IM/presence, multiple directories and more – and puts them at their fingertips, thus streamlining collaboration by removing the typical barriers between technologies. Quotes: Dr. Alan Baratz, Senior Vice President, Avaya President, Global Communications Solutions, Avaya "We have a simple goal for Avaya unified communications solutions: enable any employee to use any device in any location to collaborate effectively. This can mean enabling a nurse to launch a call to a doctor from a patient care application, or enabling ad hoc collaboration that starts as an IM, escalates to a multiparty conference call with document sharing -- all with the swipe of a finger. Avaya delivers a powerful, integrated experience for end-users that's easy for IT to manage and highly cost-effective for the business." Additional Resources: • Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications: http://www.gartner.com/technology/streamReprints.do?id=1-1728DMD&ct=110823&st=sb • Avaya Aura: http://www.avaya.com/usa/resource/assets/brochures/avaya%20aura%20-%20brochure%20uc4218%20v2.pdf • Avaya Flare Experience Guided Tour: http://www.avaya.com/usa/campaign/avaya-flare-experience-guided-tour/ Tags: Avaya, unified communications, business collaboration, Avaya Aura, Avaya Flare Experience, enterprise communications, Gartner * Bern, Blood, Steve, Dozier, Linda; Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications; Gartner Research, August 22, 2011 About the Gartner Magic Quadrant: The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2011 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Genesis Systems Corp. Selected for Membership in Avaya DevConnect Program

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Genesis Systems Corp., a communications management software developer, 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.

Genesis Systems is the developer of Genesis Enterprise Manager, an application/application family that allows comprehensive, multi-dimensional management of Avaya phone systems. As a result, companies can effectively manage their entire communications environment, regardless of their platform or total number of PBXs, from a single interface.

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.

"Membership in Avaya's developer community will help us build our business by developing products to serve customers more efficiently and effectively," said Randy Mennear, CEO of Genesis Systems Corp. "Building on Avaya resources and working more closely with the company to deliver compliance-tested solutions to the market, we are able to reduce the time to deployment dramatically so businesses can quickly realize the convenience and cost saving benefits."

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 Genesis Systems are helping Avaya users optimize their communications investment, especially users migrating from legacy platforms," said Eric Rossman, vice president, developer relations, Avaya. "Genesis provides existing Avaya users with unified products that allow them to effectively manage their PBX platforms in their current state and throughout their migration process.

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. Genesis Systems is a Gold member of the Avaya DevConnect program.

Membership information and a listing of solutions developed and tested under the DevConnect program are available at www.avaya.com/devconnect.