Avaya, Polycom Expand Video, Voice Partnership

Avaya and Polycom announced Tuesday that they will expand their partnership to include the development and marketing of integrated video, voice and collaboration solutions.

The result will be a solution based on Avaya's Aura Session Initiation Protocol, incorporating Polycom's Open Collaboration Network strategy.

The expanded partnership follows Polycom's recent hook up with Juniper to compete with Cisco's teleconferencing solutions, which, in turn, have been expanded by Cisco's recent acquisition of Tandberg. The entire unified communications environment has been dramatically reshuffled in recent months by a spate of acquisitions and new partnerships.

The expanded Avaya-Polycom video-based solution will use Avaya's Aura UC portfolio as a control point for delivering communications across enterprises.

"By adopting the Avaya Aura platform, Polycom products will benefit from the seamless interoperability it offers," said Avaya's Alan Baratz in a statement. "The Avaya platform enables our customers to integrate, manage, and use communications in new ways to improve business performance." Baratz is Avaya's senior vice president and president of its Global Communications Solutions unit.

The new expanded solution integrates Polycom's range of voice and video systems with Avaya's Aura to deliver real-time collaboration, enabling users to administer, schedule, and manage joint solutions in a consistent manner while controlling bandwidth efficiently.

Avaya recently increased the reach of its SIP-based platform with its $900 million acquisition of Nortel Networks' Nortel Enterprise Solutions operation. The Avaya platform integrates communications across multi-vendor networks and the new deal with Polycom builds on both firms' existing communications platforms. Andy Miller, Polycom's executive vice president of Global Field Operations, said: "These existing relationships give us an excellent opportunity to introduce customers to our new UC solutions."