Avaya Expands Unified Communications Solutions for IBM Lotus Users
o Avaya Unified Communications applications provide advanced mobility and collaboration to end users for increased responsiveness to customers and more efficient decision-making
o New Avaya solutions integrate with IBM Lotus Notes and Domino and IBM Lotus Sametime to deliver Avaya IP telephony, conferencing and messaging to the Lotus environment
ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 22 // -- LOTUSPHERE, BOOTH #430-432 -- Avaya (NYSE:AV) today announced significant additions to its suite of Unified Communications solutions at Lotusphere, IBM's annual user conference for Lotus software. The new applications expand Avaya's established portfolio of solutions for the Lotus platform and extend the company's strategy to change how businesses deliver strategic communications and collaboration tools to workers wherever they are, on any network, platform or device. Avaya is a global provider of business communications applications, systems and services.
Avaya Unified Communications solutions for Lotus Sametime, Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino currently include multiple applications, such as unified messaging, speech access to Lotus Notes email messages, calendars, directories and communications functions, and multi-party, click-to conference for Lotus Sametime. The solutions announced today represent integration with the most current versions of Lotus solutions in addition to extending Avaya's voice communications deeper into the Lotus collaborative environment.
"Avaya's Unified Communications strategy focuses on enabling end users to access all their communications capabilities in a coordinated way, from wherever they may be located and from whatever device they may be using," said Eileen Rudden, Avaya vice president and general manager, Unified Communications. "Lotus Notes and Lotus Sametime are among the most popular PC applications in use by businesses today. Avaya is happy to work with industry leader IBM to provide Lotus Sametime and Lotus Notes users with integrated experiences for office and mobile telephony, voice and video conferencing, and voice messaging. By incorporating these powerful communications capabilities into business applications, Avaya and IBM are helping customers achieve enhanced customer responsiveness and efficient corporate management, the benefits of Intelligent Communications."
Avaya is introducing three Unified Communications solutions, which will be on display at Lotusphere along with other advanced, integrated Avaya IP communications solutions for Lotus Notes and Domino and Lotus Sametime:
o Avaya Meeting Exchange for IBM Lotus Sametime extends the value of the
latest version of IBM's platform for secure, scalable and proven instant
messaging and Web conferencing. By integrating Avaya's market-leading
audio conferencing capabilities, the solution provides users with added
collaboration capabilities, including multi-party click-to-conference
from Lotus Notes and Lotus Sametime contact lists. In addition, Avaya
Meeting Exchange integrates with the Web conferencing in Lotus Sametime
to offer meeting participants a single, unified interface for both audio
and web conferencing. Workers can see web and audio presence, including
who is speaking, and they can manage audio and web conferencing in
real-time -- mute noisy lines, disconnect participants or dial out to
new participants -- making it easier and more cost-effective for
businesses to collaborate. The solution is available globally.
o Avaya IP Softphone support for IBM Lotus Sametime provides workers with
access to advanced enterprise communications capabilities from the
familiar Lotus Sametime interface on their PC or laptop. The solution
enables users to click-to-call from their Lotus Sametime client and
contact list and includes features such as transfer, hold and directory
access, which can be easily accessed onscreen. Conferencing for up to 6
parties can be launched with the click of a mouse. The solution will be
available globally in February 2007.
o Avaya Modular Messaging 3.1 is the newest release of Avaya's highly
scalable, standards-based messaging system. The solution can be
deployed in either a traditional configuration, with voicemails kept on
a separate Avaya messaging application server, or in a unified
configuration where Lotus Domino customers can store both email and
voicemail messages on their Lotus Domino email server. When used with
Avaya one-X Speech, users have hands-free, eyes-free, speaker-
independent speech access to email, voice mail and calendar from any
phone. In addition, speech access enables workers to place one-on-one
or multi-party conference calls by simply telling the system to dial
people from the user's Lotus Notes contacts list or co-workers from the
corporate LDAP directory. This raises productivity and lowers training
costs by allowing users to manage voice communications from their
familiar Lotus Notes client or an intuitive speech interface. The
solution will be available globally in February 2007.
The Via Group, a Houston-based systems integration consulting company, uses Avaya Modular Messaging integrated with their Lotus Domino message store. This enables workers to see all messages -- email, voice mail and fax -- from the Lotus Notes client on their desktop or laptop for easy management and response. In conjunction with the solution, The Via Group uses Avaya one-X Speech Access for easy management of Lotus and Avaya productivity and communications tools, including calendars, email, voice mail, fax, calling and directories, from any phone, any time, without the need for cumbersome and distracting touchtone codes.
"Avaya unified communications solutions have enabled us to be extremely accessible to our customers and flexible with our workforce," said David Carswell, president of The Via Group. "In addition to providing our customers and prospects with ready access to sales and engineering experts through the 'find me, call me, notify me' features, we also have easy speech access to all of our messages -- voice, email and fax -- along with our calendars and contacts. Once you have this capability, it's hard to imagine doing business without it."
Avaya and IBM deliver comprehensive solutions that combine advanced communications software and infrastructure with consulting and implementation services that help customers to achieve rapid return on investment, reduced operational risk, and improved business performance.
About Avaya Unified Communications Solutions
The solutions announced today are part of the family of Avaya Unified Communications editions. These solutions give businesses the flexibility to deliver the right applications to the right devices for various segments of workers with different communications needs, to help employees improve productivity wherever they are conducting business. The editions include:
o Unified Communications, Essential Edition for office-based users who
need advanced IP telephony and messaging support and basic conferencing
functionality;
o Unified Communications, Standard Edition for mainstream users who
benefit from advanced mobility tools including unified office and mobile
communications tools across all major mobile platforms;
o Unified Communications, Advanced Edition for users who gain a
competitive advantage by collaborating with large teams using integrated
voice, presentation, and "whiteboard" sessions;
o Unified Communications, Professional Edition for strategic communicators
who take advantage of video communications and speech recognition,
including high-definition video conferences and voice-driven access to
messages and other personal applications.
About Avaya
Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than one million businesses worldwide, including over 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500(R). Focused on businesses large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable Internet protocol (IP) telephony systems and communications software applications and services.
Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications -- and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services -- Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. For more information visit the Avaya website: www.avaya.com/.
IBM, Lotus, Notes, Domino and Sametime are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.
Source: Avaya
CONTACT: Media Relations: Mary Thiele, +1-908-953-6152, mthiele@avaya.com
Web site: www.avaya.com/
