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| Avaya Adds Significant Number of End Users Avaya announces that it has achieved significant growth in the number of end users it supports at mid-sized sized companies worldwide. According to a report from Canalys, Avaya added seven million mid-market end users across the globe in the last three years - about equivalent to the population of the City of London. Avaya cited the Unified Communications Call Control report (Q2 2007) from Canalys, which specializes in delivering market data, analysis and advice to the world's leading technology vendors. Canalys tracked the number of Avaya users between 2005 and 2007. The Avaya portfolio for mid-sized businesses includes solutions such as Unified Communications solutions and customer service applications. Avaya also said that Jenne, a major North American distributor of networking and IP telephony products, will distribute Avaya solutions for mid-sized businesses. One mid-sized company using Avaya solutions to improve customer service and productivity is Ohio-based Progressive Medical Inc., a cost containment company that provides pharmacy benefit management, medical equipment and ancillary healthcare services to the workers' compensation, auto no-fault and personal injury protection industries. Progressive Medical has 380 employees and provides services and support to clients and injured parties nationwide. With a contact center at headquarters and a pharmacy home-delivery service based a short distance away, Progressive Medical needed a mobility solution to integrate mobile phones with desk phones and eliminate the need for an in-house wireless network. "Our facilities manager relies on Avaya Extension to Cellular to receive calls wherever he's working in the building", said Rick Dosky, Supervisor, Technical Services, Progressive Medical. "If the alarm company calls his office to report an alert and he needs to investigate the cause, he can simply take the call with him by moving it to his cell phone." With Avaya Extension to Cellular, calls and business phone features such as "hold", and "conferencing" can be accessed by a user's mobile phone. As a result, Progressive Medical's IT Technical Services employees spend less time at their desks answering calls and more time providing hands-on troubleshooting services to co-workers throughout the company's two buildings. Pharmacists receive calls made to their desk extension while assisting the company's contact center agents, executives have a mobility solution that allows them to be reached directly while out of the office, and the company's facility manager can be reached at any time, no matter where he is in the building. The "one number reachability" at Progressive Medical is an example of Unified Communications, which can find the right person at the right time, no matter what device they are on or where they are. The Avaya one-X Mobile capability inherent in Extension to Cellular delivers full office phone functions to mobile devices, simply, flexibly, and securely, integrating into the enterprise dial plan and supporting office desk phone features like conference calling, transfer, mute, hold and many others. "Mid-sized businesses have similar communications needs as their large business counterparts. They want to integrate their voice systems with collaboration tools, critical business process and applications in order to achieve efficient communication between their employees across the company, including headquarters, branch office and remote workers", said Maria Carolina Guedes Smith, New York City-based senior consultant, AMI Partners. "Because mid-sized businesses have budget and skilled IT staff constraints, they need cost-effective and easy-to-use solutions. Avaya's strength in IP telephony, unified communications and contact center applications, combined with a broad presence in small and medium business (SMB) and enterprise markets, ensure that the company is well positioned to address these firms' requirements." Avaya has also announced the updated release of MultiVantage Express, a complete mid-size business communications solution that integrates core applications into an affordable package that's simple to use. MultiVantage Express 2.0 offers price reductions of more than 30 percent. It includes built-in contact center software that enables companies to improve customer service and a conferencing feature that enables employees to connect with clients, vendors and each other quickly and economically. With new "single number reachability", incoming office calls can be sent to a mobile phone or laptop, along with functions such as "conference", "forward", and more, enabling workers to be reached easily. The updated release of MultiVantage Express includes a new upgrade path to Avaya S8500 media servers, the ability to network up to 10 locations, and a new, easy-to-user GUI interface for simplified network management. The new MultiVantage Express applications are in place at hit-Technopark in Hamburg, Germany, an industrial park that provides office space, consulting and other services to companies. About half of the company's 500 employees and customers have Avaya 9600 desk phones and are using features such as softphone applications on their mobile devices, with the rest scheduled for deployment over coming months. "The technology park accommodates about 60 companies, many of whom specialize in telecommunications", said Wolfram Birkel, managing director, hit-Technopark. "Each has different requirements, and Avaya's MultiVantage Express solution meets many of their needs. Other companies offered us hybrid technologies, but they always came with some kind of limitation. MultiVantage Express incorporates the widest range of services in a single, pre-integrated solution." According to Torsten Holst, partner, Mendo Consult, tenants in the park have wide-ranging specifications. "There was increased demand for value-added services, such as a voice mailbox, fax services or integrating softphones, but these services can cause the price of a solution to skyrocket", he said. "MultiVantage Express from Avaya performed very well in our due diligence. It provides a complete package at an affordable price." Jorge Blanco, vice president, solutions marketing, Avaya, said that mid-sized businesses are driven to manage costs while increasing employee productivity and growing their customer base. "Clearly, adding seven million customers over the last three years to our existing customer base is a significant milestone for Avaya. It solidifies Avaya's leadership position in the mid-market and positions it well for the future as the company increases its focus on this market segment." write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Computing News :: home page |