Avaya Teams With IBM on Hybrid Cloud Push
Partnership also gives Avaya’s ReadyNow private cloud solution more international reach
Avaya is looking to expand the reach of its ReadyNow private cloud offerings into hybrid cloud environments by adopting IBM’s hybrid cloud solutions and services.
The Lowdown: The networking and communications vendor will host and manage IBM services on its private cloud platform, which includes unified communications and contact center bundles.
The Details: Avaya launched ReadyNow in January as a way to deliver its Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center-as-a-Service (CCaaS) via an on-premises private cloud model. The offerings include preconfigured services that can be consumed via per-seat pricing models. By working with IBM, Avaya will be able to offer a hybrid cloud solution to meet customer demand and grow ReadyNow adoption internationally. Avaya’s private cloud solution had been available in the United States and Europe.
Avaya also will be able to leverage advanced technologies like IBM’s Watson APIs, which company officials said will help enhance the customer experience by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into the customer support system, which will bring greater automation and faster decision-making.
Avaya customers also will be able to leverage IBM’s cloud data centers around the world, giving Avaya a greater international presence.
The Impact: Enterprises are taking an increasingly hybrid approach to their cloud strategies. For many workloads, they can take advantage of the flexibility and scale that public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud offer. However, other applications need to remain on premises for a variety of reasons, including to ensure compliance with various data privacy regulations, which is a particular concern for organizations with a presence around the world. Gartner analysts predict that by next year, 90% of organizations will adopt hybrid infrastructure management capabilities.
Background: The partnership with IBM comes as Avaya officials continue mulling the company’s future. They said earlier this year that they were looking at ways to become a private company. Just this month, officials said they need more time to study its strategic options and are in discussions with advisors and possible suitors.
The Buzz: “Companies today need to be able to deliver the best experiences for their customers while improving efficiency and business performance,” said Chris McGugan, senior vice president of solutions and technology at Avaya. “Together, IBM and Avaya plan to deliver one of the most complete contact center solutions on the market, featuring Avaya’s best-of-breed software and infrastructure with IBM’s leadership in hybrid cloud, consulting, and implementation services. We’re excited to collaborate with IBM as part of our hybrid multicloud strategy to provide customers with experiences that matter at cloud speed. Additionally, the combination of Avaya and IBM Watson APIs will help make businesses work smarter, and I’m pleased to form this strategic alliance.”
“Our clients are embracing hybrid cloud strategies in order to modernize their businesses and drive innovation, while maintaining high security standards,” said Denis Kennelly, general manager of cloud Integration at IBM. “By working with Avaya to integrate this hybrid cloud approach, we can help them enhance their performance and security for clients while accelerating access to higher-value services that can help differentiate their offerings and drive customer loyalty.”
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