Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems, software and services, today announced the next advancement for business collaboration with Avaya Aura® Conferencing 7.0, the latest version of the company’s multi-modal conferencing solution.
The company also announced the availability of the Avaya Flare® Experience for Apple iPad tablets and Microsoft Windows-based PCs and laptops, along with a new version of its Avaya Aura unified communications platform and expanded mobility for the Avaya Communication Server 1000 (CS1000). The Avaya Aura Conferencing 7.0 solution enables session-based, unified voice and web collaboration from anywhere using desktop Macs or PCs, tablets, and smartphones. Supported by the open, standards-based SIP architecture of Avaya Aura 6.2, Avaya Aura Conferencing 7.0 provides the high-performance, high scalability and security required by enterprises while enabling the flexibility needed for mobile collaboration and BYOD environments.
The new collaboration solution provides a number of user and business benefits, including:
– One-stop access from the intuitive, collaboration user interface of the Avaya Flare Experience on Apple iPad tablets and Microsoft Windows PCs or laptops, for communications and multimodal collaboration, voice, document sharing, IM/presence, email and consolidated corporate and personal directories.
– A zero-install, Collaboration Agent client that makes it easy for participants to collaborate using any Web browser or iPhone, and that works seamlessly with the Avaya Flare Experience clients on iPad tablets and Windows PCs/laptops.
– Visual and contextual controls that help eliminate most or all of the typical disruptions of traditional conference sessions, such as announcing or identifying attendees, background noise, speaker identification, etc.
– Scalability to handle 7,500 active conferencing sessions supporting workers located virtually anywhere to eliminate or reduce the cost of outside services.
– A distributed, open architecture and built-in intelligence that helps reduce and manage bandwidth usage and adapts as needed to make it easy on the network and the budget.
Avaya Aura Conferencing 7.0 is available for $140 per user with the Collaboration Agent browser interface and for $190 per user with the addition of Avaya Flare Experience for Windows operating systems and iPad tablets. The collaboration solution is supported by the newest version of Avaya Aura (6.2) and can connect to either Avaya Aura Communication Manager or Avaya CS 1000 systems.
Avaya CS 1000 customers can add an Avaya Aura-based Collaboration Pack, a single server solution that brings SIP capabilities of Avaya Aura and mobility choices to CS 1000 users. The Collaboration Pack now includes Avaya Flare Communicator and Avaya one-X® Mobile SIP for iOS.
This announcement highlights Avaya’s commitment to the “Power of We™” to enable faster collaboration, smarter decisions and better business results. Supporting Quotes: “Our goal is to centralize all of our communications and collaboration solutions and reduce or eliminate the current technology fragmentation that eats up budget and resources across different departments and agencies. From our perspective, we believe Avaya Aura Conferencing 7.0 and Avaya Flare Experience with Avaya Aura hold the key we need to a unified approach from the core that provides a true unified experience for our users.” Duane Schell, Director, Network Services, State of North Dakota “There are many things we like about Conferencing 7.0 with Avaya Flare Experience. It’s easy to swipe contacts into the spotlight for a conference, and to share all kinds of content with people and partners so they have complete understanding. I know exactly who is in the session without taking a roll call, and can easily mute a line that’s creating a distraction for the rest of the attendees. It’s great that speech and web-conferencing can be done through the same interface, and the audio has been clear every time. We are already heavy users of audio-conferencing solutions and are excited about the potential of the web and video conferencing provided through this solution.” Deepa Kurup, Assistant Director of Network Operations, University of South Florida “Users are increasingly looking for solutions that blend telephony with audio and web conferencing into an easy-to-use experience available on their device of choice. Avaya Aura Conferencing 7.0, combined with the Avaya Flare Experience, presents a unique on-premise solution that addresses this need.” Andy Nilssen, Sr. Analyst & Partner, Wainhouse Research
