Avaya's Flare for Video

14 Sep 2010

What will get more attention from Avaya's announcement - the new video products or the new name for the video experience? Branding has certainly gotten its fair share of attention in the past few months - first the Cisco Cius (rhymes with see us), then Microsoft Lync (rhymes with sink), and now, Avaya Flare (rhymes with - uh, Blair). UCStrategies' Nancy Jamison wrote a great article about the latest in naming trends (Microsoft Lync - New Name Part of a Bigger Trend that will Help Unified Communications), and Avaya Flare hits the mark in several respects - it's a single syllable and can appeal to both consumers and businesses. On the down side, the name doesn't really tell you what it does (no, it doesn't set you on fire).

Branding is all well and good, but what's the new announcement really about? It's about building on what Avaya touts as the "integrated people-centric user experience," providing intuitive multi-modal collaboration, and context aware communications, while adding new "comprehensive end-to-end video collaboration solutions" supporting flexible choices, including Avaya Flare, Avaya 1000 Series video endpoints, Avaya one-X Communicator, Avaya Professional and Managed Video Service, all working together and with third part environments.

There are several important new offerings - first is the "Flare experience." Avaya points out that Flare is not a product or a solution, but an experience. Flare will do for the front end what Aura does for the back end, as it bring to the user what has been unified on the backend via Avaya Aura, but now is unified on the front end with Flare. Flare is a personal workspace with drag and drop communication services and information access. It will initially be available on the Avaya Desktop Video Device (we'll get to that next), and leverages Avaya Aura infrastructure and shared SIP-based applications. It initially only runs on the new Avaya Desktop Video Device but will be brought to other devices and desktops shortly. Flare is not just for Avaya clients but will be for mobile devices or any end point, with a single interface. Flare integrates IM, presence, email, contacts, calendar, messaging, web browsing, social networking, business applications, etc. in a single interface (a key element of a unified communication solution!). During the pre-launch analyst briefing, Avaya noted that Flare makes video easy, makes communicating easy, and will change the way people work. Bold statement!

Flare leverages the capabilities that work in the Avaya Aura backend, such as audio and presence capabilities, with Avaya Aura Session Manager managing all sessions. The Avaya flare experience lets you collaborate with anyone in the enterprise, and through directory mashups and social networking, people outside of the enterprise can be brought in to the session. What looks to be the most impressive aspect is the "spotlight" - users bring contacts into the spotlight on their screen and can communicate with them via voice, IM, video, email, social media, etc. Simply drag and drop their contact card into the spotlight and select the communicate mode you want - very simple (or so it appears).

As mentioned, Flare will initially run on the new Avaya Desktop Video Device (no fancy names here, what you see if what you get). The new device will compete head-on with the Cisco Cius. Like Cius, it's a communication and collaboration device, and will not compete with the iPad. I'll leave analysis of this device to others, but essentially it's a 11.6" Android-based touch screen device, with touch and swipe control. It includes HD camera, HD video, HD audio, dual microphones, and an optional base and handset. In addition to providing fully-integrated video, the device is based on an Android platform able so it can support Android-compliant applications, as well as enterprise mobility support, including SIP, WiFi, and VPN. The price will start at $2,000 list, which is higher than Cisco's Cius, although Avaya notes that this is for the "experience and the device."

Avaya notes that the video device was designed to optimize the Flare experience. For example, each individual user has a contact card with contact information as well as their communication history so you can see the communications history you've had with them, such as IMs sent, files shared, etc. - with everything in one place. Avaya claims that it delivers on the promise of dragging other applications into a session, so users can bring in recording to capture everything in the session, for example.

The Flare experience will also be extended to the one-X Communication 6.0 client, and the new Avaya 9600 series desk phones, providing enhanced collaboration capabilities including voice, conference control, IM, and presence. During a conference call, for example, users can see who's on a call, who's on mute, and even get a flash alert if you start talking while you're on mute (how many times has that happened to each of us!). Users can have sidebar calls and exchange IMs with people on the conference bridge. One-X Communicator 6.0 was enhanced to include SIP HD video, enabling any user to take advantage of video. One-X Communicator 6.0 can bring audio, video, IM, and presence to users regardless of which device they use on the front end, and provide tight integration with Outlook, Notes, Sametime, and OCS.

Another new announcement is end-to-end video conferencing, providing a new SIP-based video endpoint family, the Avaya 1000 series. It will scale from the Avaya 1010 executive desktop up to large multiscreen conference rooms, (note that Avaya is not selling the monitors). The endpoints will register to Aura on the backend, and provide end-to-end low cost HD video at low bandwidth.

To deploy more quickly for those companies that have not moved to Aura 6.0, the Avaya Collaboration Server provides Aura 6.0 core on a single server, and includes a Session Manager, presence server, conferencing server, Communication Manager, and System Manager on a single server, supporting 50 endpoints, and integrates with Avaya and third-party infrastructure.

Other announcements include Professional Services for video, supported by 1500 consultants globally, and Managed Video Services. Avaya notes that this will differentiate the company, and Avaya will have VNOCs to provide endpoint on-boarding, certification, scheduling, meeting pre-testing and conferencing support. As video goes ubiquitous in the enterprise, companies can use Avaya managed services to help provide the services needed for specialized video skills and infrastructure.

I'll do a separate article on web.alive experience at a later date, but the new news for now is that the web.alive immersive 3D experience (from the Nortel acquisition) is now available as a network-based hosted service. The audio technology provides high-definition spacial audio, which can essentially mimic a cocktail party-type environment, enabling users to hear conversations going on nearby while listening to the main conversation.

In summation, Avaya's goal is to bring business communications to users so it becomes about the people you communicate with, not about the devices, by providing an integrated people-centric user experience, based on an efficient core foundation (Aura), with a comprehensive set of end-to-end video collaboration solutions, that are open and integrate with other providers and applications.

Will Avaya meet this goal? The company seems to be on the right track, and the new device and Flare experience look pretty impressive at first glance. We'll have to wait to hear from end users about how intuitive and easy-to-use the device and experience really are, and what the user experience is really like. I have some concerns about someone being able to simply move people in and out of conferences and discussions simply by moving their contact card icon - what if you're in the middle of a side-bar discussion and then get dragged into the main conference? During the demo that was streamed live during the launch event, Dr. Alan Baratz looked a bit like a puppet master, moving people in and out of conferences. We'll have to see how that really works and its impact on users.

We also haven't seen the Flare experience on mobile devices yet, which will be key. It looks great on the Avaya Personal Video Device, but that was purpose-made for Flare, while mobile devices weren't.

All in all I'm impressed, but I want to talk to real users and get their impressions once the products are in their hands.