New Avaya IP Office Release 6.1 Improves User Experiences, Drives Cost-Savings, and Reduces Software Installation Time by Nearly 75%

Monday 15th November 2010

Guildford, UK – Avaya, Inc. today introduced the new version of Avaya IP Office—the company’s flagship communications solution for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Avaya IP Office Release 6.1 delivers a host of business collaboration and customer service enhancements that can improve ease-of-use and worker productivity for SME workers, and provides significant new efficiencies for businesses.

Avaya IP Office has been recognised for its total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits, delivering savings of approximately 25% in acquisition and ownership costs when compared with a competing vendor solution.(1) The new version of Avaya IP Office extends TCO strengths by enabling installation via a single DVD containing the open standards-based Linux operating system (OS) and key communications applications. Formerly, the OS and IP Office applications had to be installed via several sources and multiple DVDs. 

This new approach can cut down software installation times by as much as 75%(2), saving labour costs and simplifying installation. Additionally, when compared to other OS environments, Linux does not require user licenses, driving further savings.

Other advancements introduced today include:
•         Flexible Avaya one-X™ Portal for IP Office: The solution’s dynamic Web-based desktop communications interface for remote, mobile and office workers features a newly-designed, customisable interface with drag and drop application gadgets. The application—which lets users manage calls, instant messages and e-mails from one PC-based portal—now allows users to place gadgets (i.e. Directory, Call Log, etc.) wherever they want on their screen. Further customisation includes ‘skins’ and branding with the SME’s business name.


•         Improved Contact Centre Reporting: Now, an SME can gauge the success of a customer campaign through location-based business intelligence that analyses all calls flowing into a contact centre, and makes them viewable on a geographic map. This capability provides a visual report of the volume of customer interaction based on their location.


•         Expanded Video Options: Avaya IP Office expands upon its videoconferencing capabilities, going beyond Softphone-based video to now offer more advanced multi-point HD videoconferencing with up to four parties(3). Additionally, it enables video integration with selected third-party SIP phones.


•         Multi-site Management: SME owners can now manage multiple office sites using one consolidated interface. This function requires a single log-in to view and manage communications parameters (i.e. user rights, hunt groups) of multiple locations (up to 32 sites).

Avaya is the worldwide leader in the SME space, with leadership in both revenue and line share.(4) With Avaya IP Office 6.1, the company is accelerating unified communications and contact centre technologies in the SME market, but with a focus on helping businesses save time and money. This helps SMEs compete more effectively, but do so in a cost-conscious manner. According to a recent SME survey(5), even as most SMEs (61%) believe technology is key to staying competitive, more than half (54%) believe cost-savings are the main driver for new technology adoption.

“Avaya continues to strengthen its SMB product offering with the Avaya IP Office 6.1 release,” commented MZA Ltd general manager, Stephanie Watson.  “In addition to extended multi-site networking capabilities, enhancements to the one-X portal interface, contact centre reporting and multi-party video capabilities, this new release also incorporates key improvements in deployment and management options which will resonate well with the SMB channel participants.”

“Enhancements made available in Release 6.1 which will extend support of Nortel IP devices in the IP Office environment should reassure legacy Avaya and Nortel customers and channels,” continued Watson. “Improved interoperability in mixed IPO and BCM environments and, importantly, an enhanced Essential Edition targeting the significant Norstar installed base in the Middle East and Africa underlines Avaya’s commitment to deliver on its Avaya/Nortel product roadmap.” 

Customer reference: Taxicentrale Amsterdam
Taxicentrale Amsterdam (TCA) is the largest taxi company in Amsterdam, Holland.  It operates 24 hours per day, 7 days per week and receives between 4,000 and 5,000 calls per day, which are handled by 4-8 agents per shift. Clearly, the accurate handling of these calls is tantamount to TCA's customer satisfaction, and so it is crucial that the call centre agents handling these calls are monitored closely.  TCA began a beta trial of IP Office 6.1 in order to gain greater efficiency from its contact centre and, ultimately, to increase customer satisfaction.

Explained marketing director, Sanne Takman: “It was the Call Centre Reporter (CCR) capability in IP Office 6.1 with its improved productivity reports that was attractive to us. Now, TCA can not only monitor calls made and received, but we get in-depth information about each call our agents handled. Since we operate in a highly competitive environment, this capability gives us critical business advantage.  Avaya IP Office  has enabled us to fully integrate our taxi dispatching system which has reduced our average call duration by 40%.  This is a huge benefit to us and our customers.”

“Our vision is to bring all of the powerful collaboration capabilities of big business to the SME community—without the complexity,” said Anthony Bartolo, general manager, SME communications, Avaya. “With the latest release of Avaya IP Office, we are advancing on this vision, while introducing new levels of cost-efficiency and TCO that drive new savings through advanced communications.”

“The IP Office Release 6.1 provides partners like us with new capabilities that will save a significant amount of time," commented Paul Blundell, managing director, iQual.  "Time is money when we have a lot of clients to install and support.  This latest release not only introduces new capabilities for small business customers but also continues to make IP Office easier to sell and manage.  Avaya is the leading vendor of technology aimed at the SME sector globally, and so it clearly understands the opportunities and challenges facing the SME market and can develop technology accordingly.  From a partner perspective, it also understands what we need to serve this sector effectively.”