Expanded Windstream-Avaya Team-Up Means More for Partners

An expanded Windstream-Avaya partnership will help the companies innovate and offer customers better products and services. That’s what they said on Tuesday as they look to take advantage of the future of cloud communications.

Avaya president and CEO Jim Chirico says he doesn’t take his company’s cloud commitment lightly. He also has a strong message to partners about the expanded team-up between Windstream and Avaya.

Avaya’s Jim Chirico

“Our message to partners is to embrace the new — new solutions, go-to-market motions and deployment models,” said Chirico. “We’ve demonstrated our commitment to this by identifying an impressive number of offerings and programs which will provide significant opportunities for both companies to provide new solutions to the market.”

He’s talking about, for instance, the Avaya IX subscription program, which the company recently expanded. Avaya IX is a tool, Chirico says, that can help Windstream Enterprise attract more customers. It also can help make more money from existing customer cloud migrations while offering more value.

The company calls Avaya IX a “flexible” new consumption-based alternative that allows for a faster return on investment. It also aims to offer customers faster and easier access to new technology; plus, the ability to flex license usage up and down.

‘Subscribing’ to a Partnership

Avaya’s Jon Brinton

“We are thrilled to have Windstream partnering with our enterprise subscription offerings and making them available to their customers through their channel community,” Jon Brinton, Avaya’s VP of North America channel sales told Channel Partners. “We have seen great success with our partners utilizing our subscription offers to help customers modernize their communications experience for their employees and customers.”

Brinton touted Avaya’s SaaS subscription model as delivering the value end customers are looking for.

And it “[allows] our partners to demonstrate their capabilities in adding value to our mutual customers,” he added. “Windstream has a great history of delivering value to customers, and we are looking forward to great success with our subscription offers together.”

The expanded agreement is also good news to Windstream CEO Tony Thomas.

Windstream’s Tony Thomas

“As we have demonstrated over the years, Windstream Enterprise has worked closely with Avaya, evolving, changing and growing with their cloud products, enabling our customers to drive amazing business outcomes,” said Thomas. “With Windstream’s new cloud offerings, vertical-specific solution sets, and advanced contact center and unified communications applications, we have a compelling story for our joint Avaya and Windstream customers.”

Windstream Enterprise is an Avaya diamond partner. It was the first company to offer cloud-based services on Avaya’s Aura platform.