Microsoft and Polycom are entering an alliance that will include jointly developing, selling and marketing unified communications products based on Polycom endpoints and Microsoft's Communications Server 14. - Polycom, which already has partnerships with the likes of Hewlett-Packard and Avaya as it ramps up its competition with Cisco Systems in the unified communications space, is now hooking up with Microsoft. The two companies announced a partnership Aug. 9 in which they will jointly develop and ma...

Avaya officials are following through on promises to aggressively integrate technologies acquired from Nortel to build up its enterprise communications offerings. The newest UC and contact center offerings are the latest examples. - When Avaya officials last year announced their intention to buy struggling Nortel Networks enterprise business for $915 million, both they and some analysts believed that would push the company toward the top of the enterprise telephony market. And thats a market that includes the likes of techn...

HP and Avaya have announced a three-year partnership that will have HP selling and servicing Avaya UC solutions, including Avayas Aura platform. The move is part of HPs strategy of competing with Cisco through a series of alliances with the likes of Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent. - Hewlett-Packard is partnering with Avaya to help expand its unified communications offerings in its ongoing competition with Cisco Systems. HP officials on June 29 announced a three-year alliance that will include HP selling and servicing Avaya UC and Contact Center products as part of HPs UC am...

A number of vendors, including Microsoft, Polycom and HP, are creating the UCIF to leverage currently available standards to improve interoperability among unified communications products. Juniper and Logitech also are founders of the UCIF, which has about a dozen members. However, absent from the membership rolls are Cisco and Avaya. - Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Polycom are among the founding members of an alliance created to push interoperability between unified communications offerings using currently established standards. Other founding members of the UCIF (Unified Communications Interoperability Forum) include Juniper...

We have Avaya IP Phones (9630) and the PC is connected to the phone. These connect back to Cisco 3560 switches. I have the switch ports configured with both switchport access vlan XX (LAN) and the VOICE vlan….switchport voice vlan XX. We see traffic that says source IP of the phone but not from the PC. We are looking to see if there is a way to better configure Netflow or the switch to help show the flow correctly from the PC connected to the phone. There is no way the IP phone is using 53 percent of the link in ONE call. So I am looking for the correct way to read the results and also better configure the devices maybe.

UC migration is not a quick fix, but a paradigm shift, argued top execs from Avaya, Siemens and Cisco.

Tandberg is unveiling the EX90, a telepresence offering that brings the immersive video collaboration technology to the desk. At the same time, Avaya is teaming up with LifeSize to add more video conferencing capabilities to its Aura platform. - <p>Tandberg and Avaya are making moves in the video collaboration space.</p> <p>Tandberg on March 18 launched EX90, which extends the companys telepresence capabilities to the desk.</p> <p>The EX90 brings the functions available in Tandbergs Telepresence offerings including video and audio quali...

Avaya and Polycom are expanding their relationship to include the development and marketing of new voice and video unified communications solutions. The integrated offerings will be based on Avaya's Aura UC platform and Polycom's Open Collaboration Network strategy. The Avaya-Polycom partnership is the latest move in a quickly changing UC landscape as vendors attempt to take on major players like Cisco Systems. - <p>Avaya and Polycom are expanding their partnership to include integrated video, voice and collaborations offerings, the latest move in a quickly evolving unified communications market.</p> <p>The two companies March 9 announced plans to jointly develop and market a host of new, tightly integra...

Avaya is unveiling its plans for integrating products acquired from Nortels enterprise business. Avayas plan is aimed at eliminating overlap while protecting Nortel customers, who not only will want to avoid any rip-and-replace scenarios but also will be courted by Avaya competitors. Avaya also said it is keeping Nortels data products, including switches and routers.
- Avaya is rolling out an integrated product road map that officials say aims to protect Nortel Networks customers and create a strong unified communications portfolio. In their plans, unveiled Jan. 19, Avaya officials also said they intend to keep Nortels data product lines, including switches, ...

A month after closing a $915 million deal to buy bankrupt Nortel's enterprise business unit, Avaya is preparing to unveil its integrated road map. The industry will see in which direction Avaya is moving, and Nortel customers will find out the future of their products.
- Avaya was one of the biggest winners in the 2009 fire sale that was Nortel Networks. The communications technology vendor bought Nortel's enterprise business, which includes Nortel's UC (unified communications) products. Avaya on Dec. 18 completed the acquisition, which analysts at the time of t...

Now that gearmaker Avaya and Web-calling service Skype share a private-equity owner, the two companies are discussing ways they can better work together. "We are having conversations with [Skype]," Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy said in an interview today. Kennedy didn’t go into detail, but these talks most likely focus on how the companies can work together, as opposed to some sort of combination of operations.

It's not difficult to imagine Avaya helping Skype enter new markets, such as the premises of its large business clients. While Skype's Web-calling service is already widely used by small businesses, it's yet to prove that it's reliable enough to serve the needs of large enterprise customers. Perhaps Avaya, whose business is focused on the enterprise, could help Skype make its Web-calling service more attractive to such large companies.

What's more, Skype could be integrated into Avaya's products, which include certain Nortel gear (Avaya closed its Nortel acquisition today). Nortel has long helped carriers like Verizon service their corporate customers. By integrating its offerings with Skype's, Avaya could help reduce these customers' telecommunications bills.

With enterprises looking for ways to save money, demand for unified communications and VOIP technologies is expected to grow rapidly. Gartner is predicting the unified communications and collaboration market will reach $7.4 billion by the end of the year, a 22 percent jump over 2008, and that HD-based video meeting solutions will replace 2.1 million airline seats annually by 2012, at a cost of $3.5 billion to the travel and hospitality industry every year. A host of companies, from Microsoft, IBM and Cisco Systems to Siemens Enterprise Communications, Alcatel-Lucent and Avaya, are looking for ways to expand their reach in the field. To help getter a better look at this market, eWEEK spoke to Paul McMillan, director of UC technical vision and strategy at the office of Siemens CTO. McMillan said the key to UC is enhancing the collaborative environment.
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Avaya and Cisco Systems were the top vendors in a unified communications market that saw strong growth in the third quarter, according to Dell'Oro Group. However, while the UC space is doing well in the second half of 2009 and is expected to continue growing in 2010, it will be a while before it reaches the pre-recession numbers of 2008.
- Avaya and Cisco Systems were the top vendors in a growing unified communications space in the third quarter, according to research company Dell'Oro Group. In a statement released Dec. 3, Dell'Oro analysts said more than 70 percent of the vendors in the space contributed to the market's growth in...

Avaya will pay more than $900 million for Nortel Networks' Enterprise Solutions business, which includes Nortel's unified communications technologies. The deal will give Avaya a 25 percent share of the enterprise telephony market, putting Cisco Systems in second place at 16 percent, according to analysts. The deal is part of bankrupt Nortel's decision to sell off its businesses piecemeal.
- Avaya is propelling itself to the top of the enterprise telephony market with its $900 million purchase of bankrupt Nortel Networks' enterprise business. The combination of Avaya and Nortel's enterprise business will give Avaya about 25 percent of the enterprise telephony market, outdistancing C...