Tag Archive for Unified Communications

Avaya CEO lays out forceful agenda for reborn company

New Avaya CEO Jim Chirico acknowledged the old Avaya was the equivalent of a team that loses football games by playing a prevent defense, and told the company’s customers and partners that now they have a fundamentally different gameplan.

Avaya announces new integrated voice and communications platform with Spoken acquisition

Avaya was already partnered with Spoken, but the acquisition will allow broaden application of their technology throughout Avaya’s portfolio, to enable customers to transform their business models.

HP vet Ken Archer lays out vision and plans as new Nectar Chief Revenue Officer

IR makes updated UC assessment and testing solution available in the cloud

Last year, IR introduced a network assessment and testing tool. It is being well received by Microsoft partners, and the new version is switching from software to a cloud-based tool.

Avaya unveils channel-only video conferencing and collaboration service

Avaya Equinox Meetings Online is a rebranded and significantly upgraded updating of Avaya Live Video. It is a service which integrates well with on-prem video, and is aimed at the premium part of the market where video quality matters.

UPDATED: Mitel accelerates move to cloud with ShoreTel acquisition

The plan is to rationalize and simplify the portfolio, although there is no rush to settle on a common platform. There is also relatively little channel overlap, so no need to rationalize the number of partners.

Mitel will protect own channel in Toshiba UC acquisition

Mitel’s acquisition of the Toshiba business is all about acquiring customers, and their channel. In order to protect their own Mitel channel partners, the two channels will, however, remain separate.

New Year’s Podcast Series: Carl Watene of Jive Canada

Carl Watene, director of sales for Jive Canada

Avaya’s Zang introduces new cloud phone service, and new collaboration tool

Zang moves into the cloud PBX market with Zang Office, although at this stage, the channel opportunities, other than referral fees, are limited. Partner opportunities for Zang Space, the collaboration tool, appear stronger.

Avaya looks to reduce debt burden and re-emerge stronger with Chapter 11 filing

Avaya says that the sale of its Contact Center business is not being considered as a way to restructure its balance sheet, but that it is in discussions to possibly sell off other assets.

ShoreTel enables partner cloud installs with new PartnerStart Program

ShoreTel has done all the cloud installs itself since it acquired its cloud business in 2012, but now their Enabled partners who get certified through the new program will be able to do so.

Westcon brings U.K. voice solution provider Speakerbus to North American channel

Speakerbus makes a high quality product used in financial segments, and by first responders and the military, but it is also exceptionally well suited to managed services.

Built-in encryption, user experience changes highlight Avaya IP Office 10

The new release of IP Office also makes some architectural and administrative changes designed to make things easier for Avaya channel partners who sell the product.

Actiance sees big benefits in Skype for Business certification

Apart from the typical benefits from certified status of Microsoft’s validation with customers, Microsoft’s policies of encouraging partnerships is generating new business for Actiance from other Microsoft vendor partners, and developing a higher value-add channel for them.

Nectar unveils QoS automation solution for collaboration environments on Cisco networks

Nectar also announced a second new offering, around Microsoft Skype, with a suite of cloud enablement solutions that parallels ones they had previously offered for on-prem deployments.