Avaya Sharpens Midmarket Focus With Agile Buy

"We're taking an aggressive stance in the midmarket," said Gwynne Wade, Avaya's vice president of midmarket contact center solutions. "We want to take ownership of it. We really feel like this is a growing space that we want to be in fully."

As part of its midmarket push, Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Avaya on Wednesday said it has acquired Agile Software NZ Ltd., a New Zealand-based software developer and maker of the Avaya Contact Center Express solution, which Avaya has sold through OEM for roughly three years.

The acquisition of Agile gives Avaya full ownership of the Contact Center Express solution, which Wade said will give the company and its partners the ability to accelerate growth in the midmarket.

The Agile buy, coupled with Avaya's recent channel push through its high-touch partner-focused model, will further fuel sales of contact center solutions in the midmarket, Wade said. In the past, potential customers were hesitant to deploy Contact Center Express in the midmarket, since the product was developed by Agile, an 18-person company. Because of Agile's New Zealand location, partners faced questions over support.

Now that it has been enveloped into Avaya, there will be less hesitation. And in November, Avaya plans to launch a single virtual call center platform aimed at the midmarket, with Contact Center Express at the center, meaning partners can offer the solutions in a full, bundled platform.

"We really want to focus on giving partners the tools and the things they need to be successful selling this product," Wade said.

Along with the Agile Software buy, Avaya on Wednesday also released Avaya Contact Center Express 4.0, the latest version of its midmarket contact center offering. Version 4.0 ties in a host of new multimedia and self-service capabilities targeted at boosting customer service and agent productivity.

At the heart of Contact Center Express 4.0 is ease of use, ease of installation and ease of management, attributes customers and Avaya partners can take advantage of, especially in the midmarket where "out of box" integration has become a necessity.

Contact Center Express 4.0 gives the midmarket features like unified desktop display, advanced multimedia tools and integration with leading software, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The system is also powered by Avaya Aura Communication Manager, Avaya's voice and video telephony software.

Contact Center Express 4.0 adds enhanced reporting for real-time and historical activity, including voice, e-mail and IM reporting; speech self-service improvements through integration with Avaya Voice Portal for automated voice, speech self-service and video customer care; and more automated features like "Customer Requested Callback," a feature that gives customers who cannot hold the option to receive a callback, which automatically schedules a return call from a live agent.

"The midmarket is a growing market," Wade said. "It's growing faster than the others. Avaya has been focused on the higher-end. We want to be a strong player in the midmarket."