Avaya Makes Strides With SIP, Nortel Acquisition

Interop — Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) will be the driving force for innovation in unified communications in the years to come. So said Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy this week during his keynote address at Interop in Las Vegas.

Kennedy called SIP a network game-changer, right up there with TCP/IP. He said SIP will allow applications to control how content is delivered through video, data, IM and more. He even demonstrated how new Avaya software, using an SIP gateway, can interpret what a caller means simply by gathering information from sources, like e-mail or a Facebook page.

Meantime, Avaya execs are touting the success of its Nortel Enterprise acquisition, saying the group grew 30 percent in the last quarter.

“Avaya is committed to the [Nortel] data business,” said Joel Hackney, an SVP with Avaya, as reported by Network World. Hackney said innovation has been and will continue to be key to the group’s success.

Avaya rolled out several new products this week in conjunction with Interop, including the Ethernet Routing Switch 8800, the Advanced Gateway 2330 and the Wireless LAN 8100 controller.