Avaya extends enterprise collaboration to locations of all sizes

Avaya, a global leader in business collaboration systems, software and services, today announced that employees in enterprise locations of all sizes can easily collaborate via voice, video and data with new Avaya Aura branch and midsize enterprise solutions. The new and enhanced Avaya unified communications products offer greater flexibility to enable spontaneous, multi-modal collaboration among any group of employees – including branch, remote and mobile workers – with more value, greater simplicity and dramatically low total cost of ownership.  

With today’s announcement, Avaya further delivers communications technologies that conquer the challenges of enabling highly productive collaboration among employees in any location of any size business. The new Avaya Branch solution, Avaya Aura Solution for Midsize Enterprises and  conferencing endpoints simplify and enrich person-to-person or group interactions across teams regardless of location to accelerate business outcomes and improve customer service. These highly flexible, easy to install, manage and administer solutions are also backed by Avaya’s Software Investment Protection Policy, making it even more cost-effective for customers to upgrade to advanced communications and collaboration tools. 

The Avaya Aura Branch portfolio expands with a new, flexible gateway for small to midsize branches that adapts current infrastructures (H.323, PRI, etc) to support a SIP core infrastructure on a single platform.  Scalable to over 350 users per branch, the Avaya B5800 Branch Gateway offers a range of basic to advanced options and supports: 

Centralized environments with applications extended from and managed at the Avaya Aura core with enhanced survivability in the branch.

Distributed environments with applications and call control delivered locally while centrally managed; for example, those typically found in real-estate or franchised business.

Mixed environments with both localized and centralized applications; for example, a local auto attendant application to provide directions, multiple languages and sales announcements while centralized applications enable video, collaboration and mobility. 

The Avaya Aura Solution for Midsize Enterprise brings Avaya Aura applications onto a single virtualized server for easy installation and management, reduced TCO and energy efficiency for companies with 250 to 1000 users. The updated Avaya Aura Solution for Midsize Enterprise 6.1 now offers:

- Avaya Aura Session Manager for management of all SIP endpoints

- Avaya Aura Presence to share rich presence information between endpoints from Avaya and other third-party vendors

- Avaya Aura Session Border Controller

- An expanded platform for advanced collaboration, such as with the Avaya Flare Experience on the Avaya Desktop Video Device and Avaya Video Conferencing Solutions

New Avaya Conferencing phones – added to Avaya’s Unified Communications portfolio following the acquisition of Konftel earlier this year – include three new options for enterprise customers that deliver high-performance, rich features and simplicity at a highly cost-effective price. 

General availability – The Avaya B5800 Branch Gateway is globally available this month; Avaya Aura Solution for Midsize Enterprises 6.1 will be globally available in April. Conferencing endpoints will be generally available in April and May.  

The Avaya Software Investment Protection Policy provides Avaya customers with existing unified communications and contact center licenses who are upgrading to Avaya Aura solutions - including the new Branch and Midsize Enterprise solutions – with entitlements to cost-savings in two ways: Under existing software subscription contracts, customers can upgrade to current, like-for-like licenses at no charge; customers without subscription contracts can save between 25 and 80 percent on standard Avaya Aura upgrade pricing.