Avaya Launches IP Office 8.0 Unified Communications Platform

Business communications and collaboration systems and services specialist Avaya unveiled IP Office 8.0, the latest version of the company’s unified communications solution for small to medium-size businesses. The updated version introduces a range of advancements for improving collaboration, including a set of mobile capabilities designed to drive better team performance and keep mobile workers connected to their colleagues and customers.

The mobility application for IP Office 8.0, called one-X Mobile Preferred for IP Office, helps enable users to access a set of unified communications capabilities on Android-compatible devices and will be extended to Apple iPhone devices in early 2012. Key features of one-X Mobile Preferred for IP Office include full multi-party conference management via mobile device, which offers the ability to invite, view, mute and drop participants during a conference call. Users can set up voice conferences by selecting the participants and then, with one touch, initiate the group conference.

Integrated presence enables users to display availability status to co-workers via mobile device (for example, available, do not disturb), and show specific times of availability based on a user’s Microsoft Outlook calendar. Unavailable workers can let colleagues follow them and receive an alert when availability resumes. Instant Messaging lets workers find business colleagues via an integrated corporate directory and begin a text chat with multiple co-workers simultaneously.
In addition, a geopresence feature displays one’s location anywhere in the world, and is designed for teams in places such as hospitals, hotels or companies where employees need to identify a co-worker’s physical location.

Visual Voicemail lets users see business voicemails on their mobile device with date/time information. Users can also hear voicemail messages as they are being left in real-time and access a call in progress to converse.

The application builds on the previously available Essential Mobility solution for IP Office, a solution that extends voice capabilities such as one-number access and call control. Essential Mobility is currently supported on Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhone devices, with support for Android and BlackBerry devices available in first quarter of 2012.

IP Office 8.0 also offers "serverless" collaboration capabilities delivered through an integrated unified communications module, called the C110 Unified Communications module. This can help eliminate the need for an external server in IP Office implementations, which in turn simplifies deployment for partners, reduces installation times and decreases equipment costs.

Additionally, desktop IP Office plug-ins embed communications into business productivity applications, enabling users to use federated presence to bring Google Talk and IP Office contacts into one-X Portal for IP Office—the company’s communications portal for SMBs, make and receive phone calls from a Salesforce.com page, view directory contacts for Google Talk and IP Office in one location, with click-to-call and conference capabilities and use visual voicemail within an employee’s Microsoft Outlook email window.