SMBs Get New UC Tools Thanks to Avaya
September 13, 2016
By Steve Anderson
Contributing Writer
Being part of the ranks of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) out there can be difficult. Resources can sometimes be slim; it's not easy to keep up with the larger businesses who can afford to make mistakes, and it seems like a lot of the best tools out there are only available for those with deep pockets and hundreds of users to get in on the action. Avaya (News - Alert), meanwhile, is ready to help out here by offering a new set of unified communications (UC) tools with an update to its Avaya IP Office Platform.
The new version of the Avaya IP Office Platform offers exciting new options right out of the gate, including built-in media encryption as well as signaling systems. This allows greater privacy for users, and less chance that data would be lost or stolen in transit. Naturally, this is an important point for any system that carries data around, but when it comes to UC systems—particularly those that are cloud-based in any part—it's especially important. Better yet, those new features come without extra cost, which makes the overall system more valuable to users.
Plus, along with the new software comes some new hardware, as Avaya introduces the H175 video phone. Packing a seven inch high-definition touchscreen display, it's great for several different use cases from individual offices to huddle rooms. With the new release of IP Office R10, a new slate of application programming interfaces (APIs) also becomes available, meaning that there are more new potential applications to come, especially in regards to communications tools like those built around Web-based real time communications (WebRTC). Avaya's new tools come into the market at an opportune time. Not only are SMBs commonly a worthwhile market to pursue, but emerging markets like the Asia-Pacific field are looking to get more into infrastructure security, a prime opportunity for security-conscious Avaya.
A combination of businesses looking for an easy way to stay in touch and a safe way to do so in an increasingly unsafe world makes for an excellent combination for those selling secure communication tools, and Avaya's are some of the safest around. Avaya's walking into a perfect storm of a market, though it's not going to be able to just set out a shingle and let business come flooding in. It will have to work carefully at marketing its product line, though with a value proposition like the one it offers, it may only have to call attention to the obvious to make its way in the market.
There's little doubt Avaya has got just the product line businesses are going to want, and with a bit of a push, it should have some very brisk sales coming up. It can't get complacent, but any investment in marketing here should be readily repaid in increased throughput.
Edited by Alicia Young