Avaya Positioned as a Leader in Analyst Firm's Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications

BASKING RIDGE, NJ--(Marketwire - Sep 17, 2012) -

• Avaya named a leader in annual Magic Quadrant report based on 'ability to execute' and 'completeness of vision'
• Avaya also receives 'positive' ratings in 2012 MarketScope for Unified Communications for the SMB market in both North America and Western Europe

Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services, today announced it has been positioned as a Leader in the recently published 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications^* (UC). In addition, Avaya was also given a "positive" rating in two separate reports from the firm, the Gartner 2012 MarketScope for Unified Communications for the SMB market for North America and for Western Europe.**

The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications report also states that four characteristics have an important effect on the success of a product and satisfaction of users: mobility -- users increasingly expect full UC functionality across all mobile platforms and operating systems; openness -- in particular, enterprises expect good-quality support for SIP, XMPP and H.2 integrations, as well as a clear longer-term commitment to inter-vendor interoperability and federation; cloud, and broad solution appeal -- successful UC solutions depend on influencing a broad and diverse audience of enterprise decision makers.

In the 2012 Gartner MarketScope for Unified Communications in the SMB market in North America, the firm finds that UC investment currently registers as a top five SMB networking investment initiative for 2012, and expects the market will increasingly exhibit UC investment momentum as the market matures during the next two to three years. Additionally, in a similar report, the Gartner 2012 MarketScope for Unified Communications for the SMB market for Western Europe, Gartner finds Unified communications (UC) adoption within the Western European market continues to gradually rise. Increasingly, small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are evaluating and acquiring a broader mix of applications as part of their communications decision. While some SMBs continue to prefer more basic stand-alone applications, many are adopting integrated UC solution sets.

Avaya received a positive rating in both Gartner MarketScope for Unified Communications in the SMB market for North America and for Western Europe.

Avaya's Unified Communications and Collaboration Portfolio
Avaya's SIP-based UC suite for mid-to-large size enterprises, Avaya Aura®, offers voice, video, conferencing, messaging, presence services, and session management, enabling centralized management and administration, plus integration and interoperability with systems and applications from Avaya and other vendors. For small to mid-size companies, the company offers Avaya IP Office and Avaya Aura for Midsize Business.

In the past year, Avaya added several new capabilities to the UC portfolio through the acquisition of Radvision (video), Sipera (security/Session Border Control) and Persony (webconferencing). The new capabilities are already being integrated into the UC portfolio, appearing in newly announced solutions such as Avaya Aura Conferencing 7.0. Avaya also expanded its Mobile Collaboration solutions with the delivery of the Avaya Flare® Experience collaboration client for iPads and Windows PCs/laptops, Avaya Flare Communicator for iPad for both Avaya Aura and Avaya IPOffice, as well as providing a zero-install, browser-based client for Conferencing 7.0, enabling collaboration from any device with an Internet browser.

Avaya also launched the Avaya Collaborative Cloud this year, a framework for enabling customers, partners and others to use, build and deliver advanced unified communications and collaboration capabilities via private, hybrid or public cloud. AvayaLive Connect, is a new, public cloud-based unified communications and collaboration solution within the Collaborative Cloud framework, provides voice, video, IM/presence, conferencing, messaging and more for $19 per user per month. 

Quotes
"Avaya helps enterprises of all sizes reach new levels of collaboration in a highly secure and scalable way. With Avaya Aura and Avaya IP Office, companies can easily manage and support today's rapidly evolving work environments, which are increasingly defined by 'Bring Your Own Device' (BYOD) models, advanced mobility and an expanding range of unified communications capabilities."
Gary E. Barnett, senior vice president & GM, Collaboration Platforms

"Only Avaya has the depth of understanding in both the technology of communications and the how people can -- and need to -- use these technologies to improve how they work. As a result, we continue to evolve and integrate the capabilities of our UC portfolio to provide customers with an extraordinary user experience that enables rich, easy and instantaneous communication and collaboration from any device."
Brett Shockley, senior vice president & GM, Applications & Emerging Technologies, Avaya

Additional Resources:
2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications
2012 Gartner MarketScope for Unified Communications for SMB Market, North America
2012 Gartner Marketscope for Unified Communications for SMB Market, Western Europe

Tags: Avaya, unified communications, business collaboration, Avaya Aura, Avaya Flare Experience, enterprise communications, Gartner

* Elliot, Bern and Blood, Steve; Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications; Gartner Research, August 27, 2012
**Fernandez, Megan and Lassman, Jay; MarketScope for Unified Communications for the SMB Market, North America, Gartner Research, August 10, 2012
Fernandez, Megan and Lassman, Jay; MarketScope for Unified Communications for the SMB Market, Western Europe, Gartner Research, August 21, 2012

About the Gartner Magic Quadrant and MarketScope Reports
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Avaya:
Avaya is a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, providing unified communications, contact centers, networking and related services to companies of all sizes around the world. For more information please visit www.avaya.com.

Certain statements contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "should" or "will" or other similar terminology. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While we believe these expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections are reasonable, such forward looking statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. These and other important factors may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. For a list and description of such risks and uncertainties, please refer to Avaya's filings with the SEC that are available at www.sec.gov/. Avaya disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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