When it comes to running a successful mid-market enterprise, communication will always be important. In today’s digitally-transforming (DX) world, where businesses are moving at an accelerated pace, it’s important to have access to a flexible, scalable solution that can grow and adapt at the same rate as your brand.
As global leaders in the world of communications, Avaya is leading the way for exceptional connections and collaboration in the mid-market space. The vast portfolio of Avaya products available today ensures that modern teams can connect faster, innovate more, and deliver stronger customer experiences too. To help you get a feel for what Avaya can offer in their mid-market UC range, we’re going to provide you with a quick overview of their two primary products: Avaya IP Office, and Avaya Aura. Both products are available either on-premises or in the cloud.
The Avaya IP Office Platform
In an agile marketplace, many organisations are making the move from legacy systems, to cloud flexibility, with hybrid components bridging the gap. Avaya has ensured that its customers can create the perfect communication strategy for their individual needs, with technology solutions to suit every organisation.
Built on decades of leadership experience in the contact centre space, Avaya IP Office is a deployment that can adapt and innovate according to the ever-changing needs of a modern business. It’s easy to upgrade, deploy, manage, and use, and scales all the way from one site, to multiple offices around the world. Features include:
- A scale of between 5 and 3,000 users
- Connections for up to 150 IP Office systems
- Virtualised IP Office Software with AWS, VMware, Microsoft Hyper V, and KVM
- Range of Deployment Options
What we like about IP Office
The Avaya IP Office platform transforms the way that mid-sized organisations conduct their day-to-day operations by creating a strong and seamless engagement experience for both employees and customers. Regardless of device, location, or application, today’s users can tap into messaging, telephony, conferencing, and contact centre solutions, all within the same unified communications platform. Our favourite features include:
- Easy UC Management: With centralised licensing, proactive voice quality monitoring, and extended diagnostic features, it’s easy to keep everything running smoothly in your mid-market company
- Fast and easy deployment: You can install IP Office and get started within minimal time, with simpler installs and more auto-detection
- Easier scalability: Create the UC system that works for you with up to 50% less memory required to grow your communication network with your business. There are plenty of rich APIs available to integrate with your system too, so you can design the strategy your business needs
- Security and resiliency: IP Office is designed to support your business no matter what. The unique resilient architecture and always-on security system ensures that you always feel protected in the cloud or on-premise
The Avaya Aura Platform
A much broader solution for the mid-market company, the Avaya Aura platform was designed to facilitate multi-modal and real-time communications in the evolving UC space. It comes packed full of applications to ensure that today’s brands can collaborate and communicate in a structure that suits them. Instead of adding complexity into the mix, the Aura platform simplifies communications with a simple, single solution for management. The result is a more cost-effective and innovative infrastructure for multi-media communications. Features include:
- A scale of up to 250,000 users
- Support for up to 2,500 users on single-server Avaya Aura solutions
- Active session manager continuity
- Survivable media processing
- Multiple IP connection paths
What we like about Avaya Aura
The Avaya Aura solution offers an advanced and appealing unified communications experience for businesses and contact centres in the mid-market space. Customers can integrate with new solutions, deliver video, voice, data, and web communications to their team, and enjoy the flexibility of anywhere, anytime connections. Some of our favourite features include:
- Reliability and adaptability: Avaya Aura offers a platform that customers can truly rely on for consistent performance and adaptability. You can select and upgrade your collaboration capabilities, add new customer services, and incorporate applications that suit you
- Customisation: Sick of the one-size-fits-all approach to mid-market communications? Avaya Aura allows customers to choose from a selection of more than 700 features in a constantly growing range of applications
- Flexibility: Because Avaya Aura is designed to “play nice” with other integrations, you can rest assured that it will offer fantastic support for everything from sophisticated contact centre setups, to video conferencing, and more
- Scalability: Like IP Office, Aura allows you to support your team consistently as your brand continues to expand and grow, without any need for concerns about functionality
What About Avaya Equinox?
Both Avaya IP Office and Avaya Aura offer a fantastic UC solution for the mid-market organisation. However, you’re probably wondering what you should do if you need a few added collaboration features in the mix? The good news is that either of the UC services outlined above can come with an integration with Avaya Equinox – the company’s latest collaboration service.
Avaya Equinox breaks down the silos in the communication infrastructure of the standard business, supporting team chat, file sharing, ad hoc and scheduled meetings, as well as screen sharing and instant messaging. Essentially, it has everything the modern company needs to take communication beyond the audio call. Equinox automatically optimises to suit the device being used – regardless of whether it’s a tablet, mobile, or desktop browser.
- With WebRTC technology, you can access a robust collaboration solution within any HTML5 browser with no need for any plugins or downloads. You can switch your desktop applications to the cloud and enjoy a host of collaboration features
- Real-time messaging: With always-ready multi-media messaging features, teams can send and access messages at a time that best suits There’s also the option for one-click escalation to a video or audio conference
- Support for all modes of conferencing: Avaya Equinox comes with support for all modes of conferencing, including high-scale audio, web collaboration, HD video, and even event streaming to as many as 100,000 users
Choosing Your Unified Communication Strategy
So, which mid-market UC strategy from Avaya is right for your setup? The simple answer is that it depends on your needs and goals as an organisation. It can always be difficult to choose between two great products, and both IP Office and Avaya Aura have excellent UC features. The only resounding difference is that Avaya Aura seems to be better for scenarios with more than 1,000 users.
