Avaya wants to be king of presence

Avaya has announced its multi-party presence server, designed to integrate presence data from a variety of sources and devices using standard protocols such as, SIP/SIMPLE and XMPP. Dubbed Intelligent Presence the server platform aggregates telephony, desktop and application presence information from either Avaya or third party sources, such as industry leaders Microsoft and IBM.

The aim is to eliminate barriers to responsiveness such as location, time of day, type of network, platform, channel or device. Avaya claims the more holistic view of the employee's presence obtained from its specialist presence server will enable more accurate contact between employees, customers, partners and suppliers. 

The Avaya announcement was made at VoiceCon which was dominated by releases and discussion around UC. The UC space has been on fire since Microsoft signaled its determination to dominate the sector last fall. IBM last week pledged one billion dollars to its UC campaign and Siemens Communications recently released its OpenScape UC server software platform.

 But while the vendors are falling over themselves there are precious few examples of firms successfully remaking work flows and processes to take advantage of the productivity advantages from the unification of communication and enterprise systems. Too often the UC platform is simply paced over the top of legacy work flows, leaving the technology to carry out what could best be described as glorified secretarial round-up duties.

For more:
- Avaya announces Intelligent Presence Release [1]
- Avaya changes UC game Article [2]

Related articles:
UC meets the contact center Article [3]
Siemens new UC platform Article [4]