With the challenge of making disparate video systems talk to each other still very much an issue for enterprise videoconferencing adoption, Avaya is joining the ranks of video vendors offering interoperability and federation services.

That news was part of a series of updates Avaya made this week to the video portfolio it acquired with Radvision earlier this year. Radvision was a hot topic at Avaya's recent Americas Executive Partner Forum in Mexico, and a number of Avaya partners are adding Radvision Scopia products to their line cards following Avaya's expansion of its video channel program in October.

One of the big updates is that Avaya's Scopia TIP Gateway now supports three-screen audio, video and data sharing with Cisco video endpoints, meaning that Avaya video products now fully interoperate with all of its major videoconferencing competitors, from Cisco to Polycom and LifeSize. That interoperability is seen as crucial to the industry's growth -- Polycom enabled a similar capability during its October product blitz -- and a number of startups, from Blue Jeans Network to Vidtel, are also attacking the problem.

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Also new to the Avaya lineup as of this week is that Avaya Aura Conferencing includes video capabilities, supporting up 7,500 concurrent users or 75,000 total users on a distributed, SVC-based switched architecture. Avaya's embrace of Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is significant because the technology offers easy multipoint video connections that aren't as bandwidth intensive as other options and don't require additional infrastructure investments.

The Scopia XT5000 platform also now offers embedded four- or nine-port MCU and SIP integration with Avaya IP Office, the company's flagship UC system for the small business and midmarket segments.

Finally, Avaya's Scopia Mobile client now works with Android-based devices as well as Apple iOS devices, and the Scopia XT Executive 240 system offers an optional embedded MCU for desktop video use. The Scopia Management System offers a browser-based interface for managing video collaborations from desktop and mobile devices -- including a geographic view of who is collaborating using Google Maps.

Lawrence Byrd, director of collaboration solutions, said Avaya has progressed in its integration of the Radvision portfolio and that in the new year, customers will see even greater interoperability between Avaya Aura, the company's virtualized UC platform, and Scopia video.

"Our integration road map for 2013 is now about increasing the depth of integration such as server-side integration that allows Avaya Aura conferences to be 'merged' with Scopia video conferences and our ongoing client enhancements, particularly to Avaya Flare Experience, to combine capabilities from the extensive Radvision work on making video simpler and easier to use," Byrd told CRN in an email.

Other recent Avaya updates included the launch of Avaya Aura Virtualized Environment, a VMware-ready version of its Aura platform that drops into VMware instead of requiring dedicated servers to run. Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy reportedly told attendees at the Avaya Evolutions event in San Francisco this week that the company rolled out 57 new products in 2012 and will continue deep investment in R&D.

PUBLISHED DEC. 13, 2012