Managed.IT - issue 58

18 01732 759725 UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS and eliminates the need to switch between applications. There are also open APIs that support custom-built integrations with specific customer environments. An Avaya experience In bringing ACO to market, Avaya has been eager to provide customers with a recognisably Avaya-like experience, to which end it has married the RingCentral UCaaS platform with the value that Avaya can bring in areas, such as: n high touch customer support at every stage of the customer lifecycle; n streamlined customer migration e.g. the ability to reuse J series phones and the provision of migration toolkits to take customers from Avaya UC on- premises solutions into the cloud; n expanded support for Avaya endpoint devices, so that ACO functionality can be extended into conference rooms with high fidelity sound quality; and n additional features, like Call Park and Page, that allow customers to transition from their existing Avaya platforms without changing the processes people are used to. Avaya is promoting the launch of Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral with the offer of a full free month of service and a 20% discount. In addition, customers will receive free Basic Avaya Cloud Office Implementation, discounts on Avaya Cloud Office Professional Migration Services and discounts on selected desk phones. www.avaya.com three or four months have been the ultimate POC (proof of concept) of how businesses need to be able to transform very, very rapidly, with no notice. Public UCaaS delivers in all three areas.” A single platform Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral provides organisations with a single platform for calling, messaging, meeting, conferencing, file sharing and accessing business applications that could replace the mish-mash of collaboration solutions used by most businesses today. According to a 2019 TalkingPointz Research Note 1 , 85% of companies use two or more disparate collaboration applications to meet customer and user requirements. In this context, key selling points are ACO’s flexibility and easy integration with third party applications. n Flexibility. Because ACO is available on multiple devices – PC, laptop, tablet, smartphone – users can switch easily between tasks and endpoints. For example, you could start a message in an app on the desktop and then move it over to an app on your smartphone or escalate team messaging to a voice call complete with files for sharing. n Integration. ACO provides out- of-the-box integrations with more than 130 widely used third party applications, including Salesforce, Slack, Box, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. This enables users to enhance existing processes with click-to-dial functionality or analytics Last month, the UK became the second region after the US to deploy Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral (ACO), Avaya’s new subscription-based, all-in-on UCaaS solution for calling, team messaging, video meetings and conferencing. Avaya UK & Ireland Managing Director Steve Joyner described the launch of ACO as a ‘milestone’ and a ‘key, key component’ in Avaya’s evolution into a software and services and transformation company. “In our last quarter earnings, 88% of our revenues are represented by software and services – that’s a record for Avaya. We saw a 5-point sequential growth on our recurring revenues and things like our cloud alliances are up to a record 23% as well. All these are key indicators of where we need to be as a software and services company. Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral is an absolute perfect accelerator for the next motion,” he said. The product of a partnership between Avaya, a leader in unified communications and contact centre solutions, and RingCentral, a leader in unified communications as a service (UCaaS), ACO enables Avaya to provide customers with a public cloud UC solution in addition to its existing private and hybrid offerings. Perfect timing Joyner believes that with businesses looking at all aspects of their operations in light of Covid-19, the launch of a public UCaaS solution that will enable new and existing Avaya customers to make the transition from on- premises communications to the cloud could not be more timely. He said: “The events of the last few months have shown that businesses absolutely need to show agility; they need to get speed to value; they need to understand how to control their costs. The last Speed and flexibility Avaya is encouraging customers to make the transition to the cloud with an all-in-one subscription-based unified communications solution Steve Joyner 1.TalkingPointz Research Note,“The Firstline/deskless Opportunity 2019”, by Dave Michels, July 2019