NEWS AND VIEWS ON REAL-TIME UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS Avaya Crashes the Video Party For those interested in unified communications and for integration of UC with visual collaboration tools, Avaya has come forth with a next-generation user experience and interface that combines to demonstrate the company’s commitment to be a mainstay player in the enterprise rich media communications market. Under the moniker of “the Avaya Flare Experience,” Avaya has introduced a suite of hardware and software capabilities that integrate voice, video, data, and chat in a way that is sure to intrigue forward-looking enterprise buyers. The thrust by Avaya is based on a multiple new products, including: The Flare experience: This is a whole new interface that combines multiple modalities, a touch interface, presence and directory services, access to social media, instant messaging, calendaring, voice and audio conferencing, web conferencing, as well as videoconferencing, etc. The Flare experience features a central spotlight that highlights active communications. Communications modalities can be invoked once the user drags a contact into the central spotlight or up to five other spotlights which can be used to engage in multiple simultaneous interactions or break out into side groups from a conference. When a contact is put into a spotlight, Flare's mechanisms automatically search for recent communications with that person including recent emails, IMs, phone call logs, calendar events, and so forth. Much in the way a call center uses pop up windows to present information about a person calling in, the Flare experience gives users context around the people they are communicating with. The very powerful and flexible and unique Flare experience Flare's capabilities are best seen on Avaya's new Desktop Video Device, an Android-based tablet communicator sporting an 11.6" diagonal touch screen. Expect to see this interface and experience run across a spectrum of Avaya communications platforms including PC The Wainhouse Research Bulletin Page-1 Vol. 11 #19 September 23, 2010 endpoints, third-party tablet devices, desktop telephones, and smartphones. The tablet supports drag-and-drop voice and video calling and conferencing, with the ability to separate from a call for sidebar interactions via voice, email or IM, and subsequently rejoin the conference without interrupting the call in progress. It is all based on Avaya Aura 6.0, Avaya's SIP-based communication manager. Avaya’s A175 Android-based video tablet Avaya’s room videoconferencing systems Other announcements from Avaya include: New software for Avaya 9600 deskphones that enables users to have sidebar chats while talking on the phone or to find experts from a variety of directories. An enhanced Avaya one-X Communicator version 6.0 now supports SIP HD video. Five hardware-based room videoconferencing systems based on what is obviously an OEM agreement with LifeSize. The key to Avaya’s entry into the group videoconferencing market is high quality at reasonable pricing. These units all integrate into Avaya Aura’s SIP call control mechanism, making video endpoints another device seamlessly connected to the PBX, the voice mail system, telephones, softphones, and the new Video Desktop Devices. A Collaboration Server, which is an all-in-one server that allows companies that do not have Aura 6.0 to immediately begin rolling out Avaya’s tablet and group videoconferencing solutions. In a single device, Aura Collaboration Server provides Aura 6.0, bandwidth management, administration, conferencing scheduling, monitoring and reporting capability, and the ability to interconnect with H.323 systems. Here’s What I Think: This is a huge leap forward for Avaya and gives the company a very strong rich media collaboration story that spans from Avaya desktop to Avaya room. The Flare experience is something you have to see to truly appreciate its unique and charming characteristics, but I think next-gen users will find Flare to be very compelling. When you combine the new products with the company’s existing Global Services organization and the managed video capabilities acquired via the Nortel acquisition, Avaya’s partnerships with Microsoft and HP (and yes there is still some competitive overlap), you have an emerging unified communications, visual collaboration giant coming to the enterprise communications party. On another note, Avaya was supposedly a key strategic partner of Polycom; so how did LifeSize crash this party? Unlike HP, where silo’d organizations struck separate deals with Polycom and Vidyo, Avaya isn’t likely to claim the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. The Wainhouse Research Bulletin Page-2 Vol. 11 #19 September 23, 2010 Here’s What Brent Kelly Thinks: Avaya’s new Flare experience provides an interface one would expect to come from a company like Apple. Having had hands-on with this device and personally seeing it operate, I find it to be a unique and compelling interface with the sort of “coolness” factor I feel about my Android smartphone. The remarkable thing is that while it has so much functionality it is so easy to use. I wish an interface like this was available for group and executive video conferencing devices. I anticipate that we will see the Flare experience move into the conference room where Android or iPad tablet devices will be able to control video conferences, including application/presentation sharing, with the same interface. (Radvision displayed an iPad application like this at the WR Summit in Boston last summer.) I saw the Cisco Cius when it was announced, and at that time the interface was not really shown. All we saw was the device with video on the screen. Cisco will have to stretch to make an interface as compelling as what we saw on the Avaya Desktop Video Device. Just by way of comparison, you can see the characteristics of each device in the table below. WR Forum: Avaya Flare a Cisco Cius Avaya DVD Screen Size 7" 11.6" Operating System Android Android Display Resolution 1024x600 1366x768 Camera in Front Bezel Yes Yes Camera in Back Bezel Yes No Max Video Quality 720p x 30 fps 720p x 30 fps Front Camera Digital Zoom 2x No Zoom Telepresence Integration Cisco Telepresence Yes, w/Standards-based Units Wireless Standards 802.11 a/b/g/n 802.11 b/g/n Mobile Standards No (3G/4G in development) Yes, via USB (3G/4G drivers in test) Bluetooth Yes Yes Presence Yes Yes IM Yes Yes Ethernet (in base) 10/100/1000 10/100/1000 Weight 1.15 lb 3.25 lb Memory 1 GB RAM/32 GB Flash 1GB RAM/4GB Flash USB Ports 3 3 HD Audio Yes Yes Signaling Protocols SIP SIP Video Codec H.264/AVC H.264, H.263 Battery 8 hours 3 hours min. with full HD video running; longer on standby Applications Cisco Quad Aura CM/SM Integration Cisco WebEx Avaya Voice, Video, IM & Presence Cisco Show and Share Unified Contacts Enterprise Calendar & Email client Avaya Contextual History Android Browser & Gallery Microsoft Document Viewer, Gmail Enterprise presence w/MS Lync support List Price Sub $1,000 $3,750 (Street price ~$2,000) The Wainhouse Research Bulletin Page-3 Vol. 11 #19 September 23, 2010 Q2-2010 Group Videoconferencing Market Statistics Some surprising statistics for Q2-2010 as industry growth quarter over quarter was largely negative, although annual growth rates remain solid given the weak economy in 2009 (details in our full report) Multi-codec Single-codec Executive Total Multi-codec Single-codec Executive Total Q2-2010 revenues revenues revenues revenues units units units units Q-Q Growth -8.3% -6.8% 2.6% -6.4% 0.6% -6.0% -1.5% -5.3% Y-Y Growth 1.5% 11.8% 18.4% 10.3% 8.7% 29.1% -3.1% 23.1% Enterprise Group Videoconferencing Endpoints Revenues Units Other Other Cisco 24% 29% 31% Cisco 45% Polycom Polycom 31% 40% New Wainhouse Research Content Subscription Document Title & Link Description Polycom, Microsoft and the End of Insight and analysis into the recently announced VCP Agnosticism Microsoft / Polycom strategic UC relationship. A Test Drive of the Damaka Amadeo Insight and analysis into the capabilities and VCP Mobile Collaboration Platform performance of the Damaka solution. Quarterly report providing market data Videoconferencing SpotCheck - (unit sales, revenue, market share, regional VCP Q2 2010 breakdown, etc.) for VC endpoints and infrastructure products. Explores the nuances behind why certain Differentiating Higher Education and EDU technologies play better in certain environments Primary / Secondary Applications – and predicts how this may change over time. Analyzes how social media is used in education, Social Media: Impact on Education and reviews key research findings, and concludes by EDU Training suggesting implications for educators and vendors. The Wainhouse Research Bulletin Page-4 Vol. 11 #19 September 23, 2010 News in Brief Microsoft has announced that its Office Communications Server (OCS) / Introducing one of the Communications Server “14” product, often WR Bulletin Sponsors dubbed CS14 for mysterious reasons, would be Applied Global Technologies (AGT) is the branded as Lync Server and the client fastest growing privately held Managed Video application to be known as simply Lync (not Services provider in North America. With over Communicator). According to much of the 17 years of experience in the video industry, chatter online, this demarcation is truly the point AGT is a leader in developing technologies and delivering services to business, where the PBX takes on dinosaur status and government, education, and service providers. where Microsoft becomes your enterprise voice AGT removes the cost and complexity of vendor. Lync (rhymes with sync) is expected to deployment and management for desktop, reach GA status late in 2010. conference room, and telepresence suite Yahoo is working to bring videoconferencing to video conferencing.