Avaya, Polycom to Develop Open, Standards-Based UC Systems

Enterprise communications systems providers Avaya (News - Alert) and Polycom announced they are expanding their existing relationship to jointly develop and market integrated video, voice and collaboration solutions. 

Under this new partnership, the companies plan to deliver fully integrated, end-to-end unified communications, or “UC,” solutions that use the Avaya Aura SIP-based platform and the Polycom Open Collaboration Network strategy, company officials said.

Roopam Jain, principal analyst, Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) views this partnership as highly encouraging because it will create standards-based, feature-rich, and purpose-built solutions for the UC market place.

“As more and more companies flesh out and execute on their UC strategies, interoperability and standards such as SIP are critical,” Jain said. “Because every UC deployment has unique requirements, standards-based solutions are key.”

The new integrated solutions resulting from this partnership will provide Polycom’s (News - Alert) full range of voice and video systems integrated with Avaya Aura delivering real-time collaboration to customers, company officials said.

 With these capabilities Avaya Aura will enable companies to administer, schedule and manage the joint solutions in a single, consistent manner, and control bandwidth to support a superior user experience and optimal deployment of network resources. 

Simultaneously, by adopting the Avaya Aura platform, Polycom products will benefit from the seamless interoperability it offers, Alan Baratz, senior vice president and president, Global Communications Solutions, Avaya, said. “Together we’ll offer customers a choice of collaboration solutions with the flexibility and functionality they require.”

Earlier in February TMCnet reported that Polycom also announced partnerships with BroadSoft, IBM, and Siemens (News - Alert) Enterprise Communication Group pursuing its Open Collaboration Network strategy.

To achieve significant competitive advantage from telepresence, video and voice collaboration solutions, Polycom's Open Collaboration Network strategy avoids the need for organizations to 'rip-and-replace' existing IT investments. Instead, the company offers an open, platform-agnostic approach to collaboration, the report said.

“We continue to deliver on the Polycom Open Collaboration Network strategy, and Avaya is leading the charge in adopting open standards as the core for its business communications platform,” Andy Miller, Polycom executive vice president of Global Field Operations, said in a statement.

“Avaya is a significant global presence across multiple industries. These existing relationships give us an excellent opportunity to introduce customers to our new UC solutions,” Miller added.