Senior Avaya executives have revealed plans to focus the company's
efforts on developing software products that run on
industry-standard hardware platforms.
Officials at Avaya's corporate headquarters in New Jersey, USA,
said that the company is already moving towards that goal through
its managed and professional services arm, business applications,
and recent efforts to make some of its products run on application
servers, such as IBM's WebSphere.
When asked if Avaya's intention was to become more software-centric
in the future, Jorge Blanco, director of strategy and planning at
the company, responded: "Absolutely".
The company already offers a number of applications, including CRM,
contact-centre programs, IP telephony software, unified messaging,
and communications applications.
Avaya earlier this week announced a new Multimedia Contact Centre
CRM suite, which helps companies deal with their customers using
the Web, e-mail, and phone.
With this version Avaya now supports Windows and Solaris, but a
version due later this year will add support for AIX, and a
subsequent iteration will include Linux support, according to James
Smith, vice-president of CRM solutions at Avaya.
"The feature capabilities are there in the 6.0 release; [the next
version] is really about new platforms," Smith said.
Karyn Mashima, Avaya's senior vice-president of strategy and
technology, said that Web services would ease the integration of
Avaya and non-Avaya applications.
"As we move to these industry-standard platforms, it will be much
easier to integrate the business applications with the
communications applications," she said.
Web services also offer a way for Avaya and its customer base to
make the most of existing infrastructure, Mashima said. "XML is the
easiest way not to change the device or the application," she
added.
In addition to products, Avaya is also putting considerable stake
into its services business.
"We're focusing on being a consultant to our customers as well as
[being] a technology provider," said Dave Johnson, Avaya's senior
vice-president of sales and marketing.
Linda Schumacher, vice-president of services at Avaya, said that
the strongest growth within the services realm is around
outsourcing and out-tasking.
Johnson also said that the structured cabling and apparatus segment
of its business is up for sale, although Avaya is not desperate for
a buyer.
"If the price is right, we'll do it," Johnson said.