Avaya Strikes Back With Three New Offers

Over the past few months the news from Avaya has been challenging. However, the team has maintained their focus on new offers. This week Avaya announced three new products/initiatives that the Avaya installed base and prospects considering an Avaya option will find significant.

First, Avaya announced a new conferencing solution called Equinox. This combines the Scopia video conferencing with the Avaya Aura Conferencing into an integrated solution. This offer is promised to integrate the previously different clients for voice and video into a single user experience that combines voice, video, and collaboration. While the details of the back-end integration were light, the capability to deliver an integrated user experience has been a key capability Avaya users have been seeking since the Radvision acquisition in 2012. The key for Avaya and its users is that Equinox provides a single user experience across media types. In addition, Avaya has used WebRTC to extend the experience beyond physical devices and native applications to web-based participation.

The second major announcement is a new desktop terminal. The Avaya Vantage is a tablet-type terminal based on Android. The base unit can be combined with eithe a corded or wireless handset. The positioning is that this is an "always there" device on the desktop that can add business value. The one point on the Vantage was the price, quoted to be under $500 list with the corded handset and under $600 with the wireless one. And, as it is Android, the capability to develop apps is very high, enabling both end users and the channel to deploy and add value. The new AVD (Avaya Vantage Device) is definitely an improvement over the original ADVD of a few years ago. The last announcement is an extension to the Breeze application the Avaya Breeze™ Client SDK. Avaya Breeze is an interesting application orchestration platform and the SDK enables developers, both end user and partner, to add value to the Vantage/Equinox solution.

While the Avaya Vantage terminal provides the Equinox experince, the promise is the ability to enhance the solution and experience through the Avaya Breeze™ Client SDK.

Overall, these announcements can provide significant value for existing Avaya customers looking to extend the value of their telephony platform into the new world of business communications. Further, it holds the potential of fulfilling the promise of a complete integrated solutions when Scopia was acquired.