UC In Sin City: 15 Scenes From Avaya's Americas Partner Conference

Avaya Rolls The Dice

Avaya hosted 338 partner companies -- including 752 individual U.S. partner employees -- at this month's Avaya Americas Partner Conference in Las Vegas, up 20 percent from last year's attendance, according to the vendor. With the integration of Nortel's former enterprise unit continuing steadily, and a number of channel initiatives on tap for the new year, partners had plenty to talk about.

Here's a quick look at some of what they saw and heard.

Top Down

During the conference's opening plenary session, Avaya's top executives promised partners that Avaya would be shifting from a defensive position to one of growth, heading into 2011. According to Kevin Kennedy, Avaya president and CEO, Avaya is winning market share, and in 2011, will seek to become stronger in the areas of brand stewardship and operations and transform from a voice and telephony company into a true business collaboration company.

Thanks For Sticking With Us

"It was a tense year, a tough year, and year of transformation, and now in fiscal year 2011, we believe we're focused almost singularly on one thing, which is growth," Kennedy told partners.

Growth Mode

According to Kennedy, Avaya has a $5 billion run rate, and part of its growth has been through stronger channel engagement. The $1 billion or so that Avaya has invested in its channel -- the bulk of which being the $915 million it spent to buy Nortel's enterprise unit and put its overall indirect sales north of 70 percent -- should set up even more channel gains in then new year, he explained, as Avaya continues to release new devices, emphasize applications and scale up its efforts in virtualization and communications-as-a-service opportunities.

The New Avaya

Both Kennedy and Joel Hackney, Avaya's senior vice president of global sales and marketing and president, field sales, made repeated reference to Avaya as a dominant international player, with top global market share by revenue in both unified communications and contact center technology. Kennedy assured VARs that Avaya will be committed to open technology environments and multi-vendor partnerships, too.

"In a world of goliaths who like to lock customers in, we have to be the answer and choice that is open," Kennedy said.

"You will be convinced that this is a new Avaya," added Hackney.

More Eyes On Channel

Avaya also made a number of updates to the year-old Avaya Connect channel program, including new certifications around its video and data networking businesses. Look for Avaya to continue to fine-tune the program, said Jeremy Butt, vice president, worldwide channels, and shift ever more toward a model of competency versus volume.

"This is the third year in a row I've said competency drives volume, volume doesn't drive competency," Butt said.

Sales Savvy

Avaya's channel mix is changing, explained Avaya executives. Some 400 of Avaya's previously 600 authorized UC partners in the U.S., for example, have been cut from the program in the past year alone. The goal, reiterated Avaya executives like Steve Fitz, vice president, US sales, was a stronger, more strategic group of partners that drive more channel revenue and grow channel opportunities.

Services Solutions

Among the new faces at Avaya making their first appearances at Avaya's partner conference was Joachim "Joe" Heel, Avaya's senior vice president and president, global services, who joined Avaya in August following a top services role at Sun Microsystems.

Heel's session on Avaya's global services business was closed to press, but several partners told CRN that Heel promised a range of new services opportunities specific to Avaya's business units, as well as an increased emphasis on professional services.

Innovation Returns

Dr. Alan Baratz, senior vice president and president, global communications services at Avaya, told CRN in an interview at the conference that Avaya had at long last returned to a position of innovation. It's refreshed, updated or upgraded key product lines across the board this year, and partners have taken to the message of SIP and the power of Aura, Avaya's virtualized UC platform.

Video Vision

Baratz's session in Las Vegas saw a number of product demos, focused on some of the most compelling product offerings Avaya had debuted in the past year. He was briefly joined by another new face at Avaya, Vice President and General Manager, Video, Joe Sigrist, who joined Avaya in late September from a similar position at video rival Polycom.

Flare Catches On

Much of the messaging from Avaya during the conference was around the idea of Avaya transcending its roots as a telephony and voice company, expanding past the notion of a UC company, and emerging as a true collaboration company. It'll be products and platforms like Flare -- Avaya's collaboration interface, debuted in September -- that help Avaya realize that vision, as Baratz and Sigrist emphasized during their Flare demo.

Real Business Tablets

They're still not calling it a tablet, but discussion of Avaya's Android-based Desktop Video Device -- one of the key endpoints it debuted along with the Flare Experience collaboration interface -- was ample at the conference. Several partners said they considered the device game-changing, especially as a UC endpoint that makes full use of the Aura architecture.

Take A Bow

Avaya's presentations weren't all technology and vision. There were partners to congratulate for a job well done in 2010, and Avaya brought out Javier Cuellar and Carol Giles Neslund, respective channel chiefs for Avaya's CALA (Caribbean and Latin American) and U.S. theaters, to celebrate.

Sign Here

Avaya encouraged attendees to John Hancock its big board -- a keepsake, no doubt, for a wild and uncertain 2010.

Take A Peek

Attendees had an opportunity to tool around with the Flare Experience and the video endpoints, as well as a boatload of other Avaya technologies, in the exhibit hall.

Writing On The Wall

Lost and found? Seen throughout the exhibit hall were whiteboards where attendees could jot thoughts, leave messages or just plain philosophize.