Avaya Ends Sales of Powered by Avaya IP Office

Avaya is increasing its focus on cloud unified communications (UC) by ending sales of its Powered by Avaya IP Office solution for partners and customers.

Avaya is focusing its efforts on Avaya Cloud Office, which will provide a “truly differentiated world-class” UCaaS solution, said Dennis Kozak, senior vice president of business transformation. Avaya is rolling out Cloud Office as part of a strategic partnership with RingCentral.

Avaya’s Dennis Kozak

“The partnership of Avaya and RingCentral brings two industry leaders together to deliver a market-leading offer that will enable our customers to leverage their existing investments with a seamless migration to the cloud,” he said. “This end of sale only impacts the Powered by Avaya IP Office solution. Avaya IP Office is Avaya’s flagship midmarket premises platform and Avaya fully intends to continue its development to meet the needs of premises-based customers globally.”

Avaya Cloud Office will be the new offering in lieu of the virtualized and containerized versions of Powered by Avaya IP Office. Partners have used these to mimic a cloud UC offering to provide customers with an Avaya option, the company said.

“Avaya Cloud Office is expected to launch in the United States this quarter, with additional country rollouts anticipated throughout 2020,” Kozak said. “Further details will be provided over the coming weeks. Avaya will continue to honor all existing Powered By Avaya IP Office contracts, including expansions, services, warranty and life cycle support through the expiration of the current term of each agreement. Powered by Avaya IP Office (virtualized) renewals (including expansions of existing systems) will be permitted until after Avaya Cloud Office becomes available, at which time additional information regarding renewal end dates, service support dates and migration tools will be communicated.”

Avaya Cloud Office will be marketed and sold by Avaya and its partners, he said.

“And we are excited to deliver this solution as a direct response to what partners and customers have been requesting — a differentiated Avaya-branded UCaaS offer,” Kozak said. “Avaya Cloud Office fulfills this need and we look forward to introducing it soon to our global partners and customers.”

John Eldh, distributor ScanSource‘s chief revenue officer, said products change all the time, and “we look forward to this new offering from Avaya.”

“We believe it will be an excellent replacement product for the Powered by Avaya IP Office solution,” he said. “Like Avaya, we continue to listen to our partners in order to deliver the communications solutions they need to meet the changing demands of their end-user customers, be it cloud, connectivity or carrier services. Avaya is a key supplier partner of ours in that process.”

Kenneth Heitner, president and CEO of Consolidated Technologies, an Avaya partner, said his company has a large customer base with Avaya solutions. The introduction of Avaya Cloud Office “allows us to provide to them a simplified transition to a robust born-in-the-cloud UCaaS solution while retaining the ability to use Avaya endpoints and benefiting from Avaya features,” he said.

“We have many customers that enjoy the current Powered by Avaya solution,” he added. “Avaya has committed to supporting that solution for a minimum of five years, so we are comfortable with those utilizing the solution. Technology continues to change at a rapid pace; this partnership combines the best of two industry leaders and I believe it will significantly benefit both (Consolidated Technologies) and our customers.”