Business Phone System Reviews | SE Telecom

Security in technology is a constant battle that is ever changing and evolving. Avaya sees the growing need to secure their technologies from outside attackers, and they have found a partner to help them out with providing customers a great security methodology. This new partner in crime fighting is HP Networking.

The HP Services zl Module for Avaya Aura Session Border Controller is a collaborative effort between Avaya and HP Networking to bring on better security to the way interactive communication is done. This new device will couple HP Networking security with Avaya’s Unified Communications to bring peace of mind to those customers deploying SIP technologies. On the growing side of this, customers are deploying, have deployed, or are considering deploying SIP has grown to an astonishing 62%.

Deploying SIP brings on its own unique form of security concerns. First, customers need to protect themselves from outside intrusions, while being able to maintain a trusted border with communication service providers. Secondly, traditional firewalls may not provide adequate coverage across business-grade real-time voice, video, and interactive conferencing sessions. This is where HP Networking comes in to provide that extra bit of vital protection.

The HP Networking E5400 zl or E8200 zl switches, along with the HP zl Module are now preloaded with the Avaya Aura System Platform 6.0. This one simple module, when coupled with the Avaya Aura Session Border Controller, can handle up to 350 concurrent SIP sessions.

There is another big advantage to customers with this new partnership as well. This advantage is that with HP integrating with Avaya, the need for even more equipment is reduced. Fewer boxes reduce IT overhead with a reduction to equipment space requirements, lower power costs, and best of all, reduced points of failure. This technology is prime for midsize companies, branch offices, and small contact centers.

Underestimating security concerns can lead to big headaches, horrible PR nightmares, and a load of money being lost. It is good to see Avaya taking security seriously, while being able to keep the required equipment to handle that security at a minimum.

Avaya has added yet another big player in the world of IP Telephony to their long list of Avaya DevConnect Gold developers, and that new name is Windstream. Windstream had to meet grueling requirements in three areas: business operations, marketing, and sales to obtain this stamp of approval. This is a great win for both Avaya and Windstream.

Just what can customers expect to see from this new crowning achievement? Windstream will be providing tools, resources, and new technologies as part of this new Gold DevConnect win. This means Windstream will be able to integrate its unified communications products, services, and expertise into a widely deployed, and vastly growing, Avaya platform. It also means that Windstream customers will see some of the great ideas from Avaya trickle into Windstream platforms.

What will Avaya get out of this new partner? Windstream is a big player in putting voice and data on the same circuit. Dynamic delivery of both voice and data on the circuit goes a long way to reducing business costs. The benefits are only exponentially grown when this Windstream technology is coupled with the Avaya Aura Communication Manager or the Avaya IP Office.

Eric Rossman, VP of developer relations at Avaya, went on to emphasize just how much the customers win with the new partnership. Both Avaya and Windstream customers will begin to receive superior support in high quality and feature rich communications products and services from Avaya and Windstream.

Windstream will now receive a much wider range of support from Avaya thanks to this new Gold level membership as well. Items such as technical resources, training, better testing facilities, and a growing customer base is just the tip of the greatness here. Let’s not forget that Windstream will also be held in high regards with many other companies that have strived to achieve this status as well.

Overall, this is a great win for customers. A continuously growing list of Gold level developers only means a bigger selection of hardware, software, and technologies to choose from when customers look to grow and expand their voice networks. What a great win for everyone!

Last week marked a momentous time for both Skype and Avaya with the announcement that these two powerhouses have joined forces. This announcement crushed the rumors of Cisco snagging up the internet based phone company, while giving Skype the boost it really needed to finally break into the corporate market. This new partnership is set to roll out in two phases.

The first phase is set to begin almost immediately with U.S. Avaya customers reaping the benefits first. This phase will push access to Skype Connect to customers. Skype Connect provides Session Initiation Protocol (or SIP) communications between Skype and Avaya systems. This technology will use the Avaya Aura Session Manager, Avaya Aura SIP Enablement Server, and a variety of other Avaya backbone systems. The key to all of this technical lingo is a potential for big cost savings on the user side. The biggest cost savings will come to those customers who can utilize Skype’s International calling plans.

The second phase is due for implementation sometime in the second half of 2011. This phase is quite possibly the most ambitious step as the two companies plan on delivering integrated unified communications and collaboration solutions. The most notable part of this step is the push for interaction to happen over instant messaging, voice, and video communication. Avaya is making big moves to push video teleconferencing into the mainstream market, and this could be a big move forward in this new direction.

The Avaya/Skype partnership can also have a big impact on those SMBs looking to save costs as well. Those businesses that are using IP Office technology will also see the benefits of lower cost international calling plans, extremely low cost local calling plans, and access to webcam type video communications integrated right into their Avaya phone systems.

Until next year, the true benefits of this partnership have yet to be fully visualized. Skype can bring in a fair amount of consumer technology to only increase the business user experience. Who knows, maybe if this ends well we will see Skype being absorbed into the Avaya family as well.

Just last week, Skype cozied up with once-competitor in the telecom space Avaya, citing a “strategic Unified Communications and collaboration partnership” that has been formed between the two for mutual gain.

We wrote this on the partnership at the time: Skype and Avaya have also been encroaching on one another’s communications space for some time. Skype with their free internet based calling, and Avaya starting to make the push for video teleconferencing. Both of these companies are seeing a continued need to grow in the others dominant space, so it only makes sense to partner up for easier access to that space.

Now, as news today breaks of a reported deal with Facebook, it’s clear that Skype hasn’t finished their wheeling and dealing for the week. Though the details of the partnership are still pretty hazy, and apparently still being hashed out, the partnership seems to revolve around Facebook Connect.

The end product of the deal would be to allow users to sign into Skype using their Facebook username and password, able to use the renowned product without having a signup for an individual account. They then would be able to text and video chat with their FB friends through the new version of Skype (5.0) due to be released soon.

While Facebook would be able to leverage the deal into more convenience for their quickly-growing user base, there’s also benefit for Skype in the partnership. They get access to millions of new users to their new-and-improved product, opening up-sell possibilities to people already familiar with the capabilities of their communication tools.

What remains to be seen, however, is the utility these new users would bring to Skype’s bottom-line, the primary factor in their deal with Avaya. Skype has experienced little problem adding new users who want to take advantage of their free products, struggling only to leverage these services into profitable telecommunications avenues.

Whether Facebook is part of the solution or just another part of this same problem remains to be seen. That is, if the deal is completed in the first place. Stay tuned.

The new BlackBerry, dubbed the Torch, has been getting less than stellar reviews from tech-heavy gear heads. However, don’t expect that to stop the Canadian-based smart phone maker, as they push ahead with an aggressive marketing campaign in advance of the phone’s Canadian release.

At first glance, the BlackBerry Torch seemed like the perfect answer to RIM’s recent slump. A combination of slick touch-screen technology and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for convenience, the torch promised to deliver the enterprise experience that business people have come to expect, while stealing some iPhone users turned off by reception problems or AT&T coverage.

However, as the new device launched in the US, people discovered that the hardware behind the glossy advertisements was lesser than expected. The technical specs, in other words, the numbers people like us love to crunch, were subpar. And this fueled debate among mobile crowds that at the least, RIM was losing a step to competitors like Apple.

With the Torch launching in Canada on Thursday, you might imagine that the makers of the BlackBerry would be sweating the outcome. In the fast-moving world of mobile devices momentum is everything, and they barely have anything. However, at least on the outside, RIM executives do not seem to be all that bothered.

“You have to draw a line in the sand at some point and say, ‘OK, these are the internal specs that we’re going to stick with,’ knowing that potentially there could be products out there in the market at the same time that have higher specs. But you kind of have to make the decision,” Michael McDowell told the Globe and Mail in a recent interview.

“Yeah, when you look on paper the specs aren’t equal to some of our competitors in market, but … we’re pretty confident the experience in this product is top notch, specs aside, and we’re getting a good response on that.”

When the Torch launches here in Canada, people are bound to get a first-hand look at exactly what this experience means. Technical specs, as they accurately measure how well a device can operate the tasks its designed for, are important things to pay attention to.

However, as they say, the proof is always in the pudding. Canadian consumers – there are bound to be quite a few – will get to see what the experience is like later this week. As always, we’ll be sure to report what they find here on the SE Telecom blog.