The unified communications offering is based on the recent strategic partnership with RingCentral announced in October 2019.
On an earnings call (Transcribed be Seeking Alpha) this week Jim Chirico, Avaya’s CEO said “In the area of enablement, our internal sales teams have been fully trained, nearly 500 of them. On the partner front, we have certified dozens of partners. In last week at our Annual Customer & Partner Conference, Engage, we held multiple ACO training and information sessions with well over 700 partner personnel in attendance. In area of technology, we remain on track to release ACO at the end of this quarter. In fact last week, we showcased a demo version of the product and its initial feature set.”
Chirico continued, “Later this month, Avaya Endpoints will be available for auto provisioning, not only with ACO but as part of RingCentral's own RCO offering, providing another demand engine for our devices. Our initial launch will focus on the U.S. and will quickly expand to three additional countries in next release cycle. Additionally, we've identify and prioritized exclusive Avaya features to incorporate into ACO that not only differentiate ACO from other UCaaS solutions, but also maintains the customer and user experience that the highly loyal Avaya customer base has come to expect.”
From master agents to SMB to enterprise companies Chirico said pipeline growth for ACO is “outpacing my expectations.”
“By the time we launch, we will have five master agents in place and we already have 200 plus agents sign to complement our existing channel partner base.”
With Avaya Cloud Office, users get:
The most requested functionality such as Video, Chat, Collaboration, along with Calling and more – for organisations of any size
200+ ready-to-use integrations with business cloud apps, including Microsoft Office 365, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Zendesk and Google G-Suite
Security and reliability features to keep business secure and operational, while also providing compliance for cloud providers
Compatibility with the Avaya phones and devices, including: J139, J169 and J179 Series phones, with additional devices to be added
Service and support managed by Avaya’s customer success team
“We are excited about the new partnership between Avaya and RingCentral, and we are looking forward to bringing Avaya Cloud Office to market,” said Jeff Gardner, CEO of Carousel, a top technology integrator, managed services and cloud solution provider, and a key Avaya partner. “The initial feedback we are hearing from our customers is very positive, and we have every expectation that they will embrace this new cloud offer as they seek communication solutions that more effectively address their evolving business needs.”
Avaya’s global customer base includes more than 100,000 customers, over 100 million UC seats and 5 million Contact Centre users in over 180 countries.