Avaya Announces Unified Communications All Inclusive

Thanks to a new service offering announced by Avaya this week, enterprises moving or upgrading to the latest version of Avaya Communication Manager will now also receive all the desktop and mobility applications needed to support a wide range of business user needs.

The new offering, called Avaya Unified Communications All-Inclusive, combines Avaya’s voice and video telephony software and unified communications applications into a single package. It will be automatically included for new customers and those upgrading to Avaya Communication Manager 5.0 Enterprise Edition for no additional cost. For customers of Communication Manager 5.0 Standard Edition, the package will cost $50 per user license.

The UC All Inclusive package includes:

• Avaya Communication Manager 5.0 IP Telephony software;
• Avaya one-X Communicator, a next-generation softphone supporting both audio and video, and providing access to all communications media in a single interface;
• Avaya one-X Portal, which delivers Web-based telephony, messaging, contacts, and conferencing through any public or private Windows, Mac OS, and or Linux-based computer;
• Avaya one-X Mobile, which enables business calling, call routing, visual voicemail, and directory access through one interface;
• Avaya Extension–to-Cellular, a "one-number access" capability for business users bridging calls between an employee’s corporate number and mobile device, allowing both to ring simultaneously;
• Avaya VPNremote software, which allows employees to plug in an Avaya IP Telephone anywhere in the world, and use the corporate phone network;
• Applications Enablement Server integration with Microsoft Office Communicator or IBM Lotus Sametime, extending telephony presence and click-to-call capabilities into these two desktop applications; and
• Avaya Intelligent Presence, which aggregates presence information from multiple sources and different protocols.

Through this single offering, enterprises can purchase an Avaya Communication Manager license and deploy the specific mobility and desktop communications applications when and where they are needed. Business users can work from anywhere with single-number access—meaning that callers only need to dial a single number to reach a user regardless of location or device— and single-number identity— meaning that those called will only see the business number of the user, whether the call is made from a mobile device, PC, home, hotel, or any other phone. Users can also shift between communications modes and applications.

“Avaya Unified Communications All Inclusive is about bringing everything together all in one portfolio,” says Steve Hardy, director of unified communications solutions and product marketing. “In one package you get everything you need to allow end users to work productively wherever they happen to be. All the things you need to make an individual productive are in one easy-to-deploy package.”

The Unified Communications All Inclusive package is available now in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and is planned for global availability by January. This release supports multiple languages, including French, German, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Finnish, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.