Avaya Introduces New Unified Communications Capabilities for Small Businesses

New version of Avaya IP Office enhances user experiences for greater productivity; Makes UC up to 40% more affordable for companies with less than 20 employees
 
March, 2010 - Avaya has introduced the new release of Avaya IP Office—the company's flagship communications solution for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Avaya IP Office 6.0 features new unified communications (UC) capabilities that deliver enhanced user experiences to employees in any location. These capabilities include advanced collaboration tools using voice, instant messaging, presence and video to drive a more productive and flexible workforce.
 
Additionally, Avaya IP Office is now easier and more affordable for a key market segment — businesses with less than 20 employees — to install and use. This enables the smallest of companies to cost-effectively implement the advanced communications and customer service functions of larger systems. With this new release, Avaya makes unified communications up to 40% more affordable for small businesses.(1)
 
"With Avaya IP Office 6.0 in place, small businesses don't have to sacrifice easy, intuitive operation in order to get the enhanced communications features of large enterprises," said Anthony Bartolo, general manager, Small and Medium Enterprise Communications. "Our latest version provides SMEs with all of the next generation collaboration tools necessary for competing more effectively today against peers and larger competitors—and for thriving as the economy recovers."
 
Improved collaboration tools, greater capacity to address SME challenges

Trends show that SMEs are optimistic about the future, yet seek new paths to business success. While most SMEs expect revenue growth in 2010(2), the majority (78%) also state that coming out of the recession, the old way of doing business won't work and they need to find new ways of taking advantage of market opportunities.(3) Avaya addresses this with advancements to its user-based SME solutions designed for teleworkers, mobile workers and office workers, including enhancements to Avaya one-X® Portal for IP Office—a desktop communications tool easily accessible via Web—and new video collaboration capabilities.
 
Avaya one-X Portal for IP Office lets users manage communications from a business office, home office or on the road via an easy-to-use Web browser-based interface (using a VPN and PC/phone combination). Today, the new release adds fully-integrated instant messaging with embedded voice calling and presence – boosting both the speed and responsiveness of inter-office communications among co-workers. Additionally, the audio conferencing feature, which allows up to 64 parties on a single call, now provides the ability to view, add, drop and mute attendees, as well as record conference calls.
 
Avaya IP Office 6.0 also introduces video collaboration through a new IP Office Video Softphone application. This offers voice control features via a virtual phone on a PC or laptop, supporting point-to-point video communications when visuals are required.
 
Other key Avaya IP Office improvements include doubling support capacity in a Multi-Site Network to 1,000 users. This enables SMEs in a wide-area network to extend the benefits of seamless communications, such as extension dialing and conferencing, to everyone across a business. Additionally, to keep essential communications running during an outage, Avaya IP Office enhances business continuity beyond telephony operation to now include voice messaging, auto attendant and other capabilities.
 
Bringing Cost-Effective UC to the "Less than 20" Market

According to IDC, an international provider of market intelligence for information technology, companies with less than 20 employees account for more than 90% of small businesses(4) worldwide. Avaya IP Office is now affordably available to this segment through a new 'combination card' – providing just a single card for what used to require several cards to support digital, analog and IP devices. This, paired with a new line of phones for businesses with less than 20 employees, reduces costs without compromising capability. 

MBA Poultry Speeds Decision-Making with Avaya IP Office

A company that is upgrading to Avaya IP Office 6.0 is MBA Poultry, a leading poultry producer based in Waverly, Nebraska, which has the mission of providing safe, high-quality chicken while ensuring superior customer service. To help achieve its goal, the company chose Avaya IP Office to speed decision-making in a time-sensitive environment.

Having reliable, always-on communications helps MBA Poultry employees monitor its food preparation process, maintain high quality, and sell more effectively. Employees who often travel between two Nebraska facilities can remain in seamless communications through Avaya IP Office's Mobile Worker solution, which includes "one number access" to forward calls to a user's preferred device. The company also believes the enhanced IP Office Teleworker solution will improve user experiences and flexibility by increasing work-at-home options.
 
"Having the option to work from home using Avaya one-X Portal will be very helpful," said Eric Hannesson, director of Information Technology, MBA Poultry. "When the weather is bad, employees can work from a home office with a productive collaboration tool at their fingertips. The new instant messaging capabilities will be valuable, since our team needs to be in constant contact, and this is one of fastest ways to communicate. For a business like ours, saving just 30 extra minutes in a month could improve productivity and savings."