Avaya thinks small with new IP telephony products

Avaya is targeting branch offices and small businesses with the launch today of a new version of its IP telephony portfolio, which comprises a series of applications, including one innovative app on focused on mobile users, as well as hardware.

The 2.0 release of Communications Manager, which is a core component of the company’s family of MultiVantage Communications applications, increases security with new support for the Advanced Encryption Standard.

“With this release, we’re also adding encryption of the signaling streams,” said Lawrence Byrd, Avaya convergence strategist.

Avaya also is trying to wrap up security features as part of a package that includes Avaya Global Service, the company’s worldwide services organization that provides network assessment and security consulting.

As expected in any new release, Communications Manager 2.0 includes a handful of new applications including multilingual support that allows IP phones to display caller ID and Web screen content in Japanese, Chinese and Russian.

Perhaps most impressive, though, from an applications perspective is what the company is calling Extension-to-Cellular, which allows lets users to extend their primary business phone number to their wireless phone.

“With codes I can enter from any phone, I can have all the features of my office phone,” Byrd said.

For example, using E-to-C, mobile employee could launch conference calls, forward and transfer calls to employees, or negotiate between multiple callers.

The new version also integrates unified messaging.

“We’re trying to make the unified messaging debated just a deployment decision,” Byrd said.