New announcements about Avaya IP Office 7.0

By Garry Audin

Reporter’s Notebook

New York- Avaya rolled out important announcements at their press gathering today in New York. The release of 7.0 makes the migration of Nortel users to Avaya’s IP Office seamless and low risk. 7.0 allows Nortel users to retain their digital phones. The retention of the Nortel phones avoids a total “rip and replace” when going to an Avaya system. This allows the customer to reduce their capital costs by 40-60% when making the move to IP Office.

A second feature of 7.0 is the easy administration and configuration transport from a BCM to an IP Office system. Dr. Allen Baratz, senior vice president of Avaya and president of Avaya Global Solutions demonstrated this migration capability. He moved the configuration from the BCM to to the IP Office, including not only the administration and configuration, but also the voice mails. It is a direct copy of one system to the other, preformed automatically- and the move is done in a matter of minutes!

Tom Mitchell, senior vice president of Avaya and president of Avaya Go To Market moderated a panel of Avaya partners. The partners expressed enthusiasm for 7.0 and how excited their Nortel customers are that there is a low risk migration path. The partners discussed how the simplicity of the offering reduced their costs for migration and increased customer confidence when making the move. Partners from the US and Canada were represented.

7.0 reduces complexity for the partner by reducing the number of Avaya and Nortel products the partners need to sell, maintain and support.

Tom went on to mention that Avaya invests $20 million a year in partner training programs.

Avaya now has a network of approximately 9,000 partners globally.

The morning ended with a technology cake (red velvet with red and black icing), baked by Buddy Valastro the star of the Cake Boss reality TV show, featured on The Learning Channel. Dr Baratz challenged Valastro to bake a cake that would support a video conference. Valestro was able to integrate displays, cameras and other electronics into a cake that required the help of eight people to lift to the podium. The entire effort was recorded by the production crew of Valastro’s program, and will be aired probably at the end of June.

The partners, journalists and analysts became the reality show audience.

Avaya’s major new York conclave was joined by people assembled in London, Munich and 1,500 people attending via on-line.