Wanting to target small and medium businesses, Avaya (News - Alert) announced new enhancements to its IP Office suite. The company added on a new software and modular hardware package, SIP trunking for reduced calling, and remote diagnostic tools.
The company introduced two versions of enhanced software for the suite: one for very small businesses and serves up to 32 users; and the Professional edition which supports up to 270 users. The list price for the IP Office 500 with the Standard Edition software starts off at US$700. An upgrade to the Professional Edition software is priced at US$1000.
Avaya is now also enabling businesses to benefit from lower priced calling from service providers via SIP-based trunking.
The company also expanded its current portfolio of servers by introducing the IP Office 500 communications server. The IP Office 500 features a more compact design. The new server supports telephony, voice messaging, and a customer service suite.
Avaya also introduced a new set of remote diagnostic tools. This suite will allow resellers to proactively identify and resolve problems remotely.
Avaya now offers new multi-site, "hot-desking" capabilities to enable employees to log into any digital, analog or IP phone at any of their company's networked locations and have calls and voice messages "follow" them. Other features include a new multi-site hunt group capability to allow employees at any networked location to "belong" to the same call routing group.
"We built IP Office from the ground up for small businesses. That means it has the right entry-level price, 'big business' communications capabilities, and options for companies to add more capabilities, capacities or locations as their business grows," commented Geoffrey Baird, vice president and general manager, Appliances, Mobility and Small Systems Division, Avaya, in a statement released on Monday.
"With this latest release, we believe Avaya certified resellers will now be able to pursue a broader market, as well as better serve their existing customers. In fact, because of the easy way to upgrade for existing IP Office customers and the new features such as SIP trunking and remote diagnostic tools, our channels will be able to make more money and better serve and support the SMB market. And, in the future, we'll continue to incorporate new benefits into subsequent releases of our IP Office portfolio."
Today's news comes on the heels of Avaya's announcement about its IP Office suite now being supported by Citel's EXTender. The EXTender 4000 and EXTender 6000 will now serve to distribute Avaya's IP Office system's features and services to home and branch offices.
The EXTender 4000 seems to be a good option for home offices and other single-user remote sites, while the 6000 model is designed for multi-user remote sites. Offices can use the systems bundled with a Citel PBXgateway termination device at the central PBX location to pass Avaya's IP Office features and applications to Avaya Definity 6400, 5400, 2400, and Magix 4400 series handsets.
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit her columnist page.
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Internet Protocol (IP) | X | | IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data
in packets over the Internet. I...more |
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) | X | | SIP is the real-time communication protocol for VoIP. SIP is a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification (emergency calling) and instant messaging.
SIP...more |
Routing | X | | There are many often too many explanation of routing. Here�s one:
Hop-by-Hop Routing - IP Routing
- Distributes routing to routers
- Networks look/act like trees
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