AVAYA: vowed to be a road map for Unified Communication leaders

On October 16, January 27, Avaya held the Asia-Pacific Channel Partners Conference in Beijing. AVAYA was the Global CEO and the New Asia-Pacific president (former president of Beijing Power Asia-Pacific) global and Asia Pacific Technical and channel executives attended the event. AVAYA announced a new product roadmap for integrating the SNE Enterprise Network (NES) in January 19 a week ago: four main product lines: Unified Communication, contact center, small-and medium-sized enterprise communication, and data network, by the end of the year, we will also use the SIP technology to implement the "plug-and-play" commitment for connecting NES to The Avaya platform.

Kevin Kennedy stressed that the most noteworthy detail of this road map is that the SIP protocol layer is enhanced in the communication layer. with this open technology, avaya's Aura communication platform enables the association and interoperability between different manufacturers and different devices and services. The platform is positioned between communication infrastructure (such as PBX) and services (such as voice, video, message, video conferencing, and mobility. Thanks to the advantages of Aura, both Avaya and Nortel's PBX can be plug-and-play or interwork with any SIP-based VoIP devices. You can connect to the SIP Phone on the Aura side by using the Beijing-Electric Communication Server 1000 ip pbx. All phones have functions of CS 1000, and the key order is the same for navigation. In addition, the traditional telephone of beidian network can also be connected to the Aura terminal. This will reduce the cost of using unified communication, because it reduces the need to replace PBX and telephone, and also reduces the cost of training end users to use new telephones. Avaya's strategy is not surprising, because Aura's goal is to accommodate SIP devices. Integration with Nortel's devices should be simple, and mergers and acquisitions give Avaya technical assets on both sides, this makes the SIP implementation more compatible.

DR. alan Baratz said the plan required software integration, so it could not be completed overnight, but it will be implemented by the end of this year, Nortel's Business Communication System Manager (BCM) and Agile Communication Environment (ACE) will be integrated into Aura, the latter can inject communication functions for various applications. These changes will be distributed to existing Aura customers like software upgrades.

In the contact center field, Avaya has decided to replace the contact center of Nortel Network with Avaya's own products. In the next six to nine months, the revised version of the Nortel Network Contact Center will be available, replacing Avaya's own Contact Center Express to medium-sized enterprises.

The Contact Center Software of the Nortel Network will be further developed. The hybrid Avaya is all the architecture functions envisaged by the contact center, and further developed so that it can be expanded to be applied to large enterprises. Both of the above two revisions will take 6 to 9 months. By then, the software will become an upgraded version to replace Avaya's high-end contact center Elite edition.

Even before the acquisition of the Nortel Network, Avaya admitted that the medium-sized Contact Center of the Nortel Network had better performance, Baratz said. "It is very close to the ultimate product we want," he said. Avaya plans to gradually reduce the number of phone types available for SMEs. It plans to change the previous Avaya Partner and Integral 5 key systems and Norstar systems of the Norstar network to IP Office devices.

Baratz revealed that the development of IP Office will first support the hybrid pbx of the Norstar System and the BCM network, and then gradually replace them for several years. However, at the same time, Norstar and BCM will continue to exist.

The beidian Enterprise Network also brought data product technologies and markets to AVAYA. beidian series switches, network security and wireless devices are not available in Avaya. In the future, Avaya will be able to directly sell these devices and further develop them so that they can work more closely with their unified communication infrastructure. For example, wireless devices and switches will be adjusted to provide more comprehensive data support product lines for mobile employees. However, some analysts have also raised questions about the risks. They believe that Avaya needs to further develop its equipment to compete with other infrastructure manufacturers in terms of functionality, instead of having a vswitch and vro that can improve the communication capability, it is okay. In other words, Avaya has a 5% market share of its infrastructure by acquiring beidian enterprise network. It should make the infrastructure part an independent branch, directly compete with Cisco, HP, and other vendors.

Kevin Kennedy said: "In terms of architecture, we must coexist with the world of Web2.0. Now we also see a lot of changes, such as voice control and contact centers, which will be constantly improved to meet the needs of the new Web2.0 environment. In addition, there will be some elements in our solution that will complement other elements for continuous improvement ."

In addition, the user interface is related to the user experience, whether on the software or on mobile devices, AVAYA will continue to explore, in addition, special emphasis will be placed on R & D and new technologies combined with mobile devices, such as supporting the Unified Communication System of the iPhone. Kevin Kennedy said: "How do people communicate with each other? This method is constantly changing. We will develop applications to meet people's needs and improve user experience ."

Avaya has not previously promoted the integration of Unified Communication Solutions and video technology on a large scale, but this field will certainly become the focus of AVAYA product development in the next step. When a reporter asked this question, Kevin Kennedy said it was a very good question. He admitted that AVAYA will develop its video business based on its own advantages. "We have strong advantages in voice communication and call control. At the same time, we also pay attention to SIP. We focus on providing high-definition, low-bandwidth video solutions, rather than high-definition, high-bandwidth products ." It is reported that Avaya can invest more than 10% of its annual income in R & D every year. R & D innovation will mainly focus on the following aspects: integration and support of NES products, wan SIP architecture, new generation Contact Center, New generation enterprise communication terminal, video control, real-time communication solution, SIP-based multi-mode communication, application innovation, etc.