Avaya Pushes Services, IP Telephony To SMBs

Avaya is making a series of announcements this week designed to further the services model and bring IP telephony to the midmarket.

On Tuesday, the company announced Avaya On Demand, which provides turnkey access to Avaya Intelligent Communications solutions for a subscription price starting at $25 per user per month; MultiVantage Express, a single-server solution that includes IP telephony, messaging, contact center and mobility applications; and the S8400 Media Server, which will enable existing Definity ProLogix, IP600 or S8100 server customers provides to migrate to Avaya Communication Manager IP telephony systems. The announcements were made at the Interop trade show in Las Vegas.

The new solutions are targeted at companies with 100 to 500 users, requiring lower initial capital costs and reduced management responsibilities. The communications infrastructure and applications are housed in a secure Avaya-operated data center that includes back-up systems in case of a service disruption.

"The midmarket has been the last group to adopt IP telephony because they've lacked resources such as an IT staff and the core competencies and capital issues that larger organizations have," says George Humphrey, director of on-demand services for Avaya. "This helps them get to the next level."

It also helps Avaya partners who have been clamoring for a taste of the burgeoning IP telephony market by providing a solution they can brand as their own.

"Some resellers have been starting to feel left out of the IP telephony space, or they've been losing sales to providers such as Covad," Humphrey says. "This creates a white-label hosted solution that we're selling wholesale to the channel."

Each MultiVantage Express per-user license includes Avaya Communication Manager IP telephony software, mobility applications, messaging, six-party conferencing, auto-attendant, desktop and software-based telephones. Avaya On Demand starts at $25 per user per month and distributes enterprise-class communications applications to companies.

The S8400 Media Server is a Linux server blade upgrade to the DEFINITY ProLogix, IP600 and S8100 Media Servers. It minimizes disruption by allowing customers to retain existing configurations, boards and phones, and it also offers new SMB and branch-office customers a compact, full or hybrid IP telephony solution. Cost is $4,500 for upgrades and $6,200 for a server/gateway bundle for new customers.