Business communications giant Avaya has revealed plans to extend its secure enterprise communications applications suite to the BlackBerry platform over wireless local area networks (WLANs) using session initiation protocol (SIP) ‘presence’ technology.
Avaya and RIM are in the final stages of VoIP interoperability testing for the Avaya Converged Communications Server and the BlackBerry 7270 Wireless Handheld for WLAN. This will enable broad compatibility between the BlackBerry 7270 and Avaya’s family of IP-enabled communications solutions utilising SIP-based IP telephony.
As a result, enterprises will be able to increase productivity by reducing decision cycle time and improve customer service by making personnel more readily available.
“Working with RIM, an industry leader in mobile solutions, enables Avaya to accelerate the deployment of applications that can help businesses move to a new level of intelligent communications, a way to dynamically link communications and business processes anytime, anywhere,” said Geoffrey Baird, general manager and vice-president, Avaya communications appliances division. “This marks another important step in Avaya’s plan to help businesses take advantage of the benefits of mobility by extending the bridge between the fixed and wireless worlds.”
Future development will focus on integrating Avaya communications applications more tightly with the business process applications that are supported on BlackBerry, such as sales force automation tools, to further empower on-campus workers to make decisions quickly and serve customers effectively. This collaboration will allow workers to use familiar desktop telephony features such as call hold, forward and transfer to consult with subject matter experts and look up information to serve customers on the spot, regardless of where they are working in the enterprise.
“Avaya and RIM have complementary strategies for strengthening the links between business communications applications so that campus workers and customers can communicate more effectively,” said Larry Conlee, COO at Research In Motion. “We look forward to moving ahead with the introduction of new standards-based solutions that will help revolutionise the way people work within the enterprise.”
By John Kennedy
