US Avaya Partner Conference - Day Two

By Jay Barta | 9 Nov 2011

As promised, here's more from Day Two at Avaya's US Partner Conference today in Vegas:

We issued two press releases this morning - one announcing key initiatives to build and recognize our channel partners' value (see press release here) and another naming our Channel Partners of the year (see press release here). Congratulations to the following:

• Enterprise Partner of the Year: NACR


• Greatest Growth in Acquiring New Enterprise Customers: Imagine


• Highest Overall Revenue from New Enterprise Customers: Integration Partners


• SME Partner of the Year: Synectic


• Data Partner of the Year: Carousel Industries


• Services Partner of the Year: Arrow S3


• Service Provider of the Year: AT&T

And here are some more quotes/thoughts from the conference:

"No one is more bullish then I am right now, Avaya is in the driver's seat." - Tom Mitchell, Senior Vice President and President, Avaya Go to Market

"We are having very different conversations. We are playing offense and putting points on the board every day." - Jeremy Butt, Vice president, Worldwide Channels

"Start with the customer and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try and sell it... It starts with 'What incredible benefits can we give to the customer? Where can we take the customer?'" - Ok, that's Steve Jobs, but Brett Shockley (our SVP of Corporate Development, Strategy and Innovation) used the point to reinforce his focus on innovation as a differentiator for Avaya.

And my favorite of the day... a photo of Alan Baratz demonstrating "weapons" that represent technologies that our competitors are "arming" our customers with that can be leveraged by Avaya:

And, here's a shot from our "Acceleration Lounge" at the event:

And finally, for those of you who'd like to read more, we've seen a ton of news coverage from the event - check out the following:

Avaya Channel Chiefs: New Partner Pricing Model A Year Out (CRN)

Avaya Channel Strategy Tilts Toward Full Portfolio Partners (CRN)

Avaya Mounting Massive Partner Recruitment Effort (CRN)

Avaya's Networking Business on Mission to Re-Energize Channel (Channel Partners)

Avaya Shifts Partners to Selling Solutions in Key Segments (The VAR Guy)

Avaya CEO To Partners: SIP Will Carry Us (CRN)

Avaya Partner Conference: Our SIP Bet is Paying Off (The VAR Guy)

Hurricane Rina washes out Avaya Partner Conference

Avaya Kicks Off New Fiscal Year With Americas International Sales & Partner Conference

CANCUN, MEXICO–(Marketwire – Oct 27, 2011) -

• Avaya re-affirms commitment to a customer-centric, partner-enabled business model across the Americas International region
• Leverages ‘The Power of We™’ as it outlines Americas International business focus for 2012 and recognizes high performing channel partners for FY 2011 success

Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration solutions and services, today announced a continued focus and commitment to its channel partner model and the Americas International region as it welcomed Avaya Connect channel partners from Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America to its Annual Channel Partner Conference in Cancun, Mexico.

Celebrating the company’s regional performance, John DiLullo, President, Avaya Americas International, thanked the company’s channel partners for their continued commitment and support of the company’s innovation and forward-looking strategy.

The communications and networking industry is at a crossroads where the rapid growth in the number of devices and applications are meeting changing user preferences and employee work-styles. The bottleneck for businesses is no longer access to information — it is the ability to connect people together with the right information at the right time to make smarter decisions in real time.

Avaya continues to enhance business collaboration and communication by developing technologies that enable teams to work better together. Over the past year, Avaya focused on driving profitable growth and evolving as a company to deliver solutions, training, tools, programs and resources for its channel partners to exceed customer expectations.

Avaya also recognized and honored 14 channel partners in nine categories for excellence in 2011. Winners of the Avaya Americas International Channel Partner Awards for 2011 are:

Americas International Contact Center Partner of the Year

• Canada – Branttel Networks Inc.
• Latin America and the Caribbean – Trans Industrias Electrónicas, S.A.

Americas International SME Partner of the Year

• Canada – Bell Canada
• Latin America and the Caribbean – Claro Dominican Republic

Americas International Unified Communications Partner of the Year

• Canada – Unity Telecom Corporation
• Latin America and the Caribbean – First Tech Tecnología Ltda.

Americas International Networking Partner of the Year

• Canada – Combat Networks
• Latin America and the Caribbean – IKUSI México S.A. de C.V.

Americas International Services Partner of the Year

• Canada – TELUS Communications Inc.
• Latin America and the Caribbean – Telmart Tecnologías Em Comunicação Convergente Ltda.

Americas International Service Provider Partner of the Year

• Canada – TELUS Communications Inc.
• Latin America and the Caribbean – Consorcio Red Uno S.A. de C.V.

Americas International Partner Challenge Net New Award

• Canada – Branttel Networks Inc.
• Latin America and the Caribbean – Axede S.A.

Americas International Marketing Partner of the Year

• Canada – Unity Telecom Corporation
• Latin America and the Caribbean – Consultores en Teleinformática Empresarial S.A. de C.V.

Americas International Distributor of The Year

• Canada – Westcon Canada Systems Inc.
• Latin America and the Caribbean – Anixter International Inc.

Everything You Need to Know about Voice and Conferencing - A Beginners Guide

To improve communication within your enterprise and to clients outside, it’s best to have voice and video communication integrated. Have your phone network integrated with your computer network and make it easy for your employees and colleagues to route the customer to the best possible solution with a rapid success rate.

IP technology is really advanced and its lets you add new employees, new branches, new workers, etc, as and when your business expands. Making your business succeed is far easier when your team has all the communication solutions it needs.

Bring it all together:

A business uses a wide array of tools to function smoothly. These include, calendar, internet, email, fax, phone systems, messaging, and many more applications. We need all of these to make sure that the business runs without any hiccups. Wouldn’t it be a miracle if all of these applications were integrated into a single solution? It would helps us performs loads of tasks with increased efficiency:

• With the help of voice, video and data conferencing facilities, you can conduct meetings with your team from anywhere in the world.
• Help team members locate each other easily.
• Use wireless devices to get important information when needed.
• Direct your customers to the appropriate person without wasting any time.
• Give employees the freedom to work from anywhere they want.
• Expand your business and add new employees and branches without any added hassle or cost.
• Protect your business completely from any security threats or viruses.

To explore in detail how voice, video, and data conferencing make this happen, look below.

IP Telephony:

IP telephony uses your secure data network to integrate features like dial tone, conferencing, transfer, hold, and other basic features. Employees in your office can easily direct a customer to the right person, even if he was in a remote location as the system connects everyone.

Software:

Deploy a single user friendly system to enable the employees in your office to connect with each other through voice and video conferencing. This helps them arrange for meetings and share important information with clients and colleagues from across the world at a touch of a button.

Presence Solutions:

Presence solutions help your team determine who is online and who is not. This enables them to determine the availability or other colleagues and get access to their contact details and time of availability.


Unified Messaging:

Having to access different messaging folders to view your mails and messages is quite inconvenience. With the help of Unified messaging, have all these delivered to a single messaging folder – your email inbox.

Rich Media Conferencing:

Hold conference meetings with your colleagues and co-workers from across the world in different branches with the help of voice, video, and data conferencing. This feature provides efficient collaboration where everyone gets an equal chance to participate in the meeting.

Web Conferencing Central Launches Brandable Conferencing

By The Telecom Reseller Blog

Instant Online Meetings – Your Brand/Your Application

Offer Full-Featured Collaboration Almost Instantly

Web Conferencing Central has announced a new conferencing platform that allows its partners to custom brand its innovative collaboration tools. The platform allows for a fast start-up that runs attractive tools under the Partner’s name and within their application.

According to Kevin Nelson of WebConCentral,

“We have a turnkey approach to providing the first customizable system that provides REAL PERFORMANCE in this field. Our application gets screen sharing done intuitively and fast. It competes with the established brands.”

Everything runs from YOUR URL, YOUR BRAND:

• Meeting Scheduler
• Sharing of full desktop or single application
• Video of Presenter
• Remote control
• Recording
• Co-browsing of websites

This is all done at a rate that works for any reseller or application owner. Of course, end users who need many seats will save money as well.

Up to now, companies that wanted their own brand had to settle for a weak application that could not handle the real demands of screen sharing the way businesses really need it to be done. This set of tools changes all that.

Now, a sophisticated web meeting with complex interaction requirements can be run with very little effort and an extremely rapid delivery.

Web Conferencing Central partners will find that the company has placed significant emphasis on providing a great product for partners, and a cost structure that works.

Partner focused features in the release include:

• Skinning – The platform can be skinned/branded to be consistent with the partners other products.
• Partner web address – The platform runs from a single URL owned by partner to keep branding consistent.

• Flexible pricing – The solution can be sold on a per account or per minute basis. The solution is priced to be attractive as free or loss-leader product as part of partner’s offering
• Integration – The solutions technical architecture makes it possible to integrate easily with other products.
• Proven – Web Conferencing Central customers have used the system for years and now partners can offer the same solid platform to their customers with their own branding.

In addition to the feature list, Web Conferencing Central is guaranteed to work according to its SLA or there is no charge.

Independent researchers found that end-users consider high performance level of the product a very important feature. The solution also offers 128-bit encryption and each session has a unique ID, virtually eliminating the possibility of meeting information being compromised.

Cisco Networkers Solutions Forum Toronto - May 19, 2011

The 2011 Cisco Networkers Solutions Forum is a showcase for Cisco's best and latest in video collaboration and borderless networks. Its also where you’ll get a glimpse of exciting advancements in next generation of data center, cloud computing and service provider solutions. Networkers features education about IT Industry trends and offers training in the latest technologies. There is a lot to see, including live demonstrations of Cisco’s products and solutions and networkers is the place to meet networking professionals like you. We are excited about the lineup of keynote speakers. Make sure you check out TRC Networks booth and see what we can do for your company, you will not want to miss this one.

Keynote Speakers:


Dr. Guido Jouret
VP/GM and CTO of Cisco's Emerging Technologies Group.

Join us as Guido talks about "The Next Five Years." This provocative session will discuss the current and future trends that affect the proliferation and use of the latest technologies in business, such as mobility, virtualization, energy and video. Highlights will include Cisco's unique innovation model, the processes and technologies derived from that model, as well as use cases of these emerging technologies in business. Guido will also ‘connect-the-dots' of these various technologies and present more comprehensive solutions that can further drive and accelerate business transformation.



Mike Holmes
Canada's Most Trusted Contractor, Crusader to Make it Right™

Join us as the dynamic host and creator of Holmes on Homes™ has an open and frank discussion about how technology can improve building standards across the globe. All the while incorporating the latest green technologies and building a truly sustainable future. Highlights will include Mike's experiences filming his #1 show on HGTV Canada and how he's parlayed that into being an advocate for craftsmanship and skilled trades everywhere.


Click here to read more & register for free

Cisco's Networkers Solutions Forum 2011 in Toronto

You're invited to Cisco's Networkers Solutions Forum taking place on Thursday, May 19 at the Toronto Congress Centre.

This year's Cisco Networkers Solutions Forum is set to bring you the latest innovations in video and collaboration, borderless networks and advancements in next generation data centre and cloud computing. This annual event offers an unparalleled combination of:

• Education and training on the latest technologies
  and trends
• An opportunity to see live demonstrations of Cisco
  products and solutions
• A chance for you to extend your professional networks by forging new connections with like-minded colleagues.

Register to attend the conference, and ensure you attend the Keynote Session presented by Dr. Guido Jouret, VP/GM and CTO of Cisco's Emerging Technologies Group and Mike Holmes, host and creator of TV's Holmes on Homes™.

First, join Guido Jouret as he presents "The Next Five Years", a thought-provoking presentation of the current and future trends generating the proliferation and use of the latest business technologies, including mobility, virtualization, energy, and video. Here, you'll learn how these many technologies will present more comprehensive solutions that can drive and accelerate business transformation in the years to come.

Next, you won't want to miss Mike Holmes, Canada's most trusted contractor and crusader to Make it Right™. Mike will share his candid experiences and present his frank views about how technology can improve building standards around the globe, and the way that incorporating green technology supports the creation a truly sustainable future.

Register Now

Avaya Partner Conference in Las Vegas Recap

By Jon Alperin | 20 Oct 2010

The sweetest sound I've heard this week at the Avaya 2011 Global Sales and Americas Partner Conference here in Las Vegas hasn't been the "ding, ding, ding" of the slot machines, or the call of "Pay the winner" at the table games. It's been a simple little phrase I've heard dozens of times from Avaya sales, Avaya Connect channel partners and Avaya DevConnect technology partners alike.

"I'll call you..."

For a company in the communications space, there is nothing better than the continued realization that spoken communication, real conversations between individuals, remains one of the most powerful and effective experiences we can have in a journey towards success.

With over 5000 attendees at the conference, it's been a great oppotrunity for me to catch up with partners and sales teams from around the globe. And in each case, the discussions always end in a similar manner.

"I'll call you."
"I'll speak to you next week."
"I'll have so-and-so call such-and-such to move this forward."

Voice is immensely powerful. Email, IM, micro-blogging, and even this blog you are reading are great tools for collaboration. But the power of having a conversation, making a phone call, drives a deeper, personal connection, and really offers results. It's too easy to hide behind the written word, to delay responding, to avoid a direct answer, to ignore the question you don't want to address. Spoken conversations don't give you those options. They require engagement. They ask for your attention and committment by their very nature.

I've watched the traffic at the demo stations for Avaya Flare™ and our new Avaya Desktop Video Device, and have seen the excitement as many of our channels and sales teams get their first hands-on experience with this new user experience, and its high-def, low-bandwidth video collaboration capabilities. And it's a game changer for most of them. "When can I get one?" "How can I get one?" "I want one now!" is often heard around the demo area. DevConnect partners have asked me how they can integrate elements of their portfolio into the video-enable Avaya portfolio.

And it's easy to understand why. We often cannot afford to have the face-to-face interactions with our peers, partners and customers, especially in a global marketplace. And email falls short in developing a meaningful personal relationship. So while voice remains the tool of choice, the addition of video bridges the gap with that highly personal face-to-face interaction, creating even deeper relationship, attention and trust.

And that drives even better payoff and results than you'll ever find on the casino floor.