Avaya adds 7 mn mid-market customers

BASKING RIDGE, N.J.: Avaya Inc., a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services, recently announced that it achieved significant growth in the number of end users it supports at mid-sized sized companies worldwide.

According to a report from Canalys, Avaya added seven million mid-market end users across the globe in the last three years - about equivalent to the population of the City of London.

Avaya cited the Unified Communications Call Control report (Q2 2007) from Canalys, which specializes in delivering market data, analysis and advice to the world's leading technology vendors. Canalys tracked the number of Avaya users between 2005 and 2007. The Avaya portfolio for mid-sized businesses includes solutions such as Unified Communications solutions and customer service applications.

Avaya also said that Jenne, a major North American distributor of networking and IP telephony products, will distribute Avaya solutions for mid- sized businesses.

One mid-sized company using Avaya solutions to improve customer service and productivity is Ohio-based Progressive Medical Inc., a leading cost containment company that provides pharmacy benefit management, medical equipment and ancillary healthcare services to the workers' compensation, auto no-fault and personal injury protection industries.

"Mid-sized businesses have similar communications needs as their large business counterparts. They want to integrate their voice systems with collaboration tools, critical business process and applications in order to achieve efficient communication between their employees across the company, including headquarters, branch office and remote workers," said Maria Carolina Guedes Smith, New York City-based senior consultant, AMI Partners.

"Because mid-sized businesses have budget and skilled IT staff constraints, they need cost-effective and easy-to-use solutions. Avaya's strength in IP telephony, unified communications and contact center applications, combined with a broad presence in small and medium business (SMB) and enterprise markets, ensure that the company is well positioned to address these firms' requirements."

MultiVantage Express for mid-size companies

Avaya has also announced the updated release of MultiVantage Express, a complete mid-size business communications solution that integrates core applications into an affordable package that's simple to use. MultiVantage Express 2.0 offers price reductions of more than 30 percent. It includes built-in contact center software that enables companies to improve customer service and a conferencing feature that enables employees to connect with clients, vendors and each other quickly and economically.

 With new "single number reachability," incoming office calls can be sent to a mobile phone or laptop, along with functions such as "conference," "forward," and more, enabling workers to be reached easily. The updated release of MultiVantage Express includes a new upgrade path to Avaya S8500 media servers, the ability to network up to 10 locations, and a new, easy-to-user GUI interface for simplified network management.

The new MultiVantage Express applications are in place at hit-Technopark in Hamburg, Germany, an industrial park that provides office space, consulting and other services to companies. About half of the company's 500 employees and customers have Avaya 9600 desk phones and are using features such as softphone applications on their mobile devices, with the rest scheduled for deployment over coming months.