Avaya outlines unified communications roadmap

Avaya today outlined its integration roadmap for the future of unified communications (UC), including its plans for the Nortel Enterprise Solution division after its US$900m ($973m) acquisition went through last month.

The communications giant said that it will make the transition for Nortel customers as painless as possible by merging existing products where practical, and not making any current UC products end-of-sale during 2010.

Alan Baratz, senior vice president and president of Avaya Global Communications Solutions, said that the roadmap will clarify where the company and UC technology is heading.

"By bringing together the best of Nortel and Avaya's product platforms we can create significant value for our customers, and provide a smooth and cost-effective future for the UC market," he said.

Baratz also explained that the takeover will involve the integration of several Nortel products, such as the Agile Communications Environment (ACE) and Application Server 5300 Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), with its Aura product to increase the platform's appeal.

"As Nortel's work on the ACE technology was ahead of Avaya's we saw that by integrating the technology we can offer benefits to the Aura platform, like application integration to offer best value from our flagship product," he said.

Aura is based on SIP technology which Avaya said will replace existing PBX solutions while enabling new ways of working with UC.

The company said that small and medium sized businesses will also benefit, as Avaya plans to merge and consolidate Nortel features, interfaces and phones within its own IP Office offering designed for firms with up to 250 workers.

The only product that Avaya advised customers to scale back is Nortel Multimedia Conferencing, claiming that its own offering, Meeting Exchange, is a "richer product and will be the go-forward investment area for conferencing".

Avaya also said that it will integrate Nortel Enterprise Solutions web sites into a single integrated Avaya web site in the months ahead.