The Avaya IP Office 6.0 platform is part of Avaya’s new corporate vision where technology is based on simplicity, customer service and user experience. The first IP Office events took place at a hotel on the outskirts of Manchester where dozens of resellers gained an insight into the enhanced communication solution for the first time. Other sessions were staged in Scotland and Ireland.
The audience heard how IP Office 6.0 is intuitive, easy to install, deploy and support and is ideally suited to the sub-20 VSB (Very Small Business) market. The Essential Edition comes with a 90% list price reduction. Video softphone capabilities (depending on user profile) and a wider choice of handsets form part of a richer feature set, improved resilience and an easier to sell overall package, resellers were told.
Nimans says Many resellers were impressed by what they saw, with one Loughborough-based dealer commenting afterwards: “IP Office 6.0 will have a big impact for us. It’s very good from a point of view of simplifying the roll out of installation onto end user computers. It will be easier to install. Even at the lower end of the market, people are familiar with web-based technologies so training will be minimal.
“Reliability has been improved along with much better scalability. We’ve been selling Avaya for the last two years and are seeing more customers move from single sites to multi sites, so this will be a big plus for us. Release 6 is a big step forward. Everybody is moving towards web-based applications and this latest product release will help us to take bigger strides forward.”
A Nottingham-based reseller added: “Having everything on the same SIP-based protocol is very beneficial as it brings uniformity and versatility with a lot more feature applications available. I think the main thing for us is that IP Office 6.0 is a great vehicle for us to target the lower end of the market. It’s a true out of the box solution with just one combi card which makes it a lot easier and simpler to sell.”
Tim Freeth, Head of System Sales at Nimans and Rocom, said: “There is no doubt IP Office remains the benchmark for resellers operating in the SME sector. Avaya continues to develop and fine tune their technology to create more tangible and compelling sales opportunities for their customers. We see IP Office 6.0 as the next chapter in its impressive evolution.”