Enterprise CommunicationsAvaya

A Few Thoughts on Experiences That Matter

by Dave Michels

Here’s a few TalkingPointz from Avaya’s Experiences That Matter event today.

  • Spaces is the current epicenter of innovation at Avaya. Spaces is both a CPaaS and Workstream Collaboration solution (meetings and messaging). It was originally introduced as Zang. There’s been a steady pace of innovation and improvements in Spaces for the past year or so.
  • Announcements today:
    • Enhanced Calling: Spaces gets integration to PSTN calling
    • Integrations (CRM, customer support, RPA, etc.)
    • AI enhancements such as virtual backgrounds and noise cancellation — cloud-based
    • 61 person “concert view”
  • There’s been tremendous AI-powered enhancements in meetings industrywide. Some of it is based in the edge devices and some is cloud-delivered. Avaya’s approach with NVIDIA Maxine does it all in the cloud. This makes these services device independent. Avaya can do things like a virtual background on a smartphone. Spaces was already a browser-based application, so no client, no hassle, and no compromises. One of the softer benefits that deserves attention is that new features are instantly available to all users and devices. This aligns nicely with my post on NoJitter today about Chromebooks.
  • A few highlights from Anthony Bartolo, EVP and Chief Product Officer:
    • Avaya portfolio now aligned with the OneCloud offer
    • Creating a modular architecture with common platform elements
    • R&D reskilled, reorganized for cloud
    • Innovating at a rate of 4.5 patents/week
  • A few highlights from Simon Harrison, CMO
    • Avaya is using the term “Composable Experiences” to describe how its portfolio puts the customer at the center
    • The power of composable experiences lies in the combination of UC, CC, and CPaaS. Avaya isn’t alone in blurring these boundaries, but it also blurs premises-based, private cloud, public cloud, and multicloud implementation models
    • Avaya positions CPaaS as the “force multiplier” for the contact center and unified communications
  • There were a variety of interesting use cases and demos. What stands out is the way Avaya can adapt to different situations, languages, devices, etc. I was particularly intrigued with a video use-case in the contact center.
  • Avaya credited its RingCentral partnership (Avaya Cloud Office) for accelerating its shift to becoming a cloud-first company
  • In Q1-21, Avaya added 1500 new customers, and closed 119 deals with a contract value over $1M