March 17, 2006

Avaya's one-X Quick Edition - Pretty Neat for Smaller Offices

Telecommuniation's company Avaya has released its one-X Quick Edition Internet Protocol (IP) telephony solution which is part of Avaya's new "one-X" brand category reports AMI Partners.

AMI analyst, Janet Stone writes - One-X Quick Edition is based on a peer-to-peer architecture, in which all intelligence lies within the phone set itself. Customers don't need to deploy a centralized server in the form of a private branch exchange (PBX) or key system equivalent. The product offers a full set of business telephony features that small businesses commonly use, such as voice mail, auto attendant, three digital dialing, dial by name and extension, and conference calling. It also includes several capabilities typically available only with IP telephony solutions such as visual voice mail.

Although Avaya has designed it for locations with less than 20 employees, the vendor says that their "sweet spot" in the market is businesses or branches with 10 employees or less. The product includes what Avaya calls the most commonly used IP PBX features, but all intelligence behind these features resides in the phone rather than a centralized server. This peer-to-peer, server-less architecture is ground-breaking in the business telephony market. For the very small business customer, the benefits of this approach include affordability, easier deployment and increased reliability due to no single point of failure.

Avaya has built the product on open standards, including Session Internet Protocol (SIP) which is poised to become the building block of future VoIP systems. During its development, Avaya's engineers inserted Nimcat-based software into two of the company's best-selling IP phone sets, which previously were available only in conjunction with its IP PBX products.

Avaya touts the product's "plug and play" installation, which is ideal for its target market. Typically, businesses with fewer than 20 employees have little or no IT staff, limited technical knowledge. According to Avaya, a new phone can be unpacked, plugged into the local area network, installed and ready for calls within minutes. The installation process is self-directed by the phone, which prompts the end user to enter their name into the directory, and then locates its peers and joins the
network.

Also included is a secured web-based management interface, that the individual employee can use to manage his or her phone's feature set. An office manager, with little or no technical experience can use the same interface to monitor network
activity.

The list price per phone ranges from $485 to $585. For future releases, Avaya plans a myriad set of new capabilities. Key among them is what amounts to an investment protection plan for the phone sets. As a small business or branch office expands and outgrows the capacity of the peer-to-peer solution, it can migrate to a larger scale centralized Avaya product, such as IP Office or Communications Manager, and reuse the same phones.

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