Avaya Cloud Brings UC And Video Collaboration For All

Avaya officials are pushing a cloud strategy for communications that will let enterprises, service providers and others build and use Avaya-based collaboration systems in public, private and hybrid clouds.

The Avaya Collaborative Cloud framework was a central part of the keynote speech at the Enterprise Connect 2012 show in Orlando, Florida, given by Brett Shockley, senior vice president and general manager of applications and emerging technologies at the networking company.

Suite spot

Shockley also introduced a suite of cloud-based products, called AvayaLive. That includes the new AvayaLive Connect, an integrated unified communications (UC) offering for smaller businesses that includes everything from voice and voice conferencing to messaging, video and mobility.

The announcements out of Enterprise Connect are just the beginning of what Avaya wants to achieve in the cloud, according to Shockley.

“The Collaborative Cloud formalises Avaya’s cloud strategy,” he said in a statement. “It expands our current portfolio of cloud-based solutions to encompass new [offerings] from the public cloud. Over the year, we will continue building new cloud-based solutions in a variety of highly flexible delivery models, enabling our customers and partners to access, utilise and extend the value of Avaya’s applications, platforms and infrastructure.”

Avaya has been aggressive over the past couple of years in building up its communications portfolio. Earlier this month, company officials announced it was buying video collaboration vendor Radvision for $230 million, a move that will bring video capabilities in-house and enable Avaya to expand its UC portfolio. It also will help boost Avaya’s networking business, according to company officials.

With Radvision, Avaya can “now provide customers with a single, total solution from Avaya”, Nick Francis, vice president of sales for Avaya’s Video Collaboration group, said in a conference call at the time the Radvision deal was announced.

Avaya has been partnering with other vendors for video conferencing capabilities.

Alternative access

Avaya’s Collaborative Cloud platform will give businesses, service providers, channel partners and developers a new way to access the company’s UC, video conferencing and contact centre technologies, officials said.

For smaller businesses, AvayaLive Connect will give them a complete, integrated package of communications products that can be accessed via the Web, according to company officials. The mobility support will enable SMBs to handle the growing bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend of employees wanting to use their own personal devices – particularly tablets and smartphones – to access the corporate network and data.

AvayaLive Connect supports PCs and Apple’s Mac systems, as well as Apple’s iOS operating system for the iPhone and Google’s Android mobile OS. It also supports multiple offices, remote workers and mobile employees. Avaya currently is running trials of AvayaLive Connect, which is expected to be generally available in the United States by mid-2012.

Businesses and service providers looking to create enterprise-class private or hybrid clouds can use Avaya’s Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture – for deploying private clouds that can be extended from the data centre to the desktop – and Avaya’s Aura foundational communications platform, according to company officials.

Enterprises can also employ Avaya’s Communications Outsourcing Solutions as a private, managed cloud, they said.

In addition, AvayaLive also includes AvayaLive Engage, an immersive platform that lets participants use personalised avatars in a three-dimensional environment for collaborative events like meetings and HR training. AvayaLive Engage had been known as Web.Alive since it was introduced in February, 2011.

The latest features include support for Apple’s Mac OSX operating systems and Safari Web browsers, video conferencing capabilities, video streaming, sharing and playback, and upgraded collaboration tools.