Avaya dives into video collaboration market

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 16 September 2010 13:12

Business IT - Technology

Unified comms systems vendor Avaya - once tipped as a buyer of videoconferencing specialist Polycom - has launched a suite of video collaboration products, including an Android based device that looks for all the world like a tablet, but which Avaya insists is not.

Dubbed 'The Avaya Flare Experience', the suite is billed as "the industry' s first, next-generation user experience that delivers unique collaboration capabilities across video, voice and text."

Products announced range from high definition personal desktop to multi-screen room systems, claimed to use significantly less bandwidth than competing products. They add video calling and video conferencing to and integrate tightly with Avaya Aura, the company' s SIP based, unified communications architecture.

Avaya says the new products represent the latest delivery against the multi-phase product roadmap that Avaya first introduced in January.

According to Avaya, the Flare Experience "breaks down the barriers between today' s communications and collaboration tools with a distinctive user interface for quick, easy access to desktop voice and video, social media, presence and instant messaging, audio/video/web conferencing, [providing] a consolidated view of multiple directories, context history and more."

The Flare Experience interface features "a central spotlight that highlights active or in-progress communications." Avaya claims that: "Initiating a communication session is as easy as moving one or more contacts from the directory into the spotlight. For text messages, a pop-up keyboard appears when a user taps a text-based icon under a contact' s photo."

Central to the Avaya Flare Experience is an Android-based tablet claimed to provide "An intuitive, ' touch and swipe' user interface from which employees can communicate in any mode, check messages, schedule meetings and appointments, and receive alerts or reminders; drag-and-drop voice and video calling and conferencing, with the ability to separate from a call for sidebar interactions via voice, email or IM, and subsequently rejoin the conference without interrupting the call in progress; a virtual ' Rolodex'  that provides a singular view of multiple directories, including corporate and personal, Facebook, Twitter and others.

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