BYOD Starts Trending on Google

From your smart phone, read this great post from Avaya's Connected Blog, located here: http://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/2012/01/BYOD-starts-trending-on-google.html. Thanks to Rob Daleman, the author of this post, and National Marketing Manager for Avaya Canada.

Every once in a while, a trend resonates closely with the needs of IT professionals - driving many discussions in the press and across the internet. One way to identify the importance of these trends is through google trends - an online tool that allows you to view the relative number of searches on a topic versus others.

Out of interest, I had a look at four ongoing topics that are pervasive to the world of business communications: Unified communications, collaboration, VOIP and Cloud applications. As expected, searches on Unified communication and VOIP have already peaked and are slowly falling off. Searches on Collaboration remain fairly consistent over time, and searches on Cloud Applications continue to grow.

Surprising, however, is the rapid rise in the number of searches for the term "bring your own device" - a search term that did not register prior to 2012, and which is currently out trending all the search terms listed above.

Why the recent and rapid increase in interest surrounding BYOD?

Quite simply, the ability to save on purchasing and managing devices, while leveraging the latest technology available.

A recent survey conducted by Vanson Bourne, found that 80% of IT managers / directors surveyed believe that BYOD will lead to significant cost savings.

In Canada, where companies have invested less in communications technology as a percentage of GDP over the past 8 years, there is an opportunity to leap-frog a generation of communications technology to increase collaboration amongst employees as well.

A plethora of online business articles over the past few weeks points to the importance of this emerging trend, from a business week checklist on BYOD preparation to the Pros and Cons of BYOD from IT World, it is clear that BYOD is increasingly on the minds of IT leaders in today's environment.

Avaya is poised to deliver real solutions for BYOD - check it out here.

Posted 30 Jan 2012 at 12:56 PM

Rob Daleman is National Marketing Manager for Avaya Canada. He focuses on providing a unique Canadian perspective on emerging telecom trends. more

Duluth Convention Center: Avaya IP Office Case Study!

The Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (DECC), a one-million square foot, multipurpose event venue and sports facility in Minnesota, turned to Avaya IP Office to meet its mobility, customer service and cost-management needs.

See a video here and find out how DECC uses IP Office to meet the challenges of running this large and complex center.

Avaya IP Office Release 8 - Mobile Collaboration!

Hot off the Avaya Press:
http://www.avaya.com/usa/about-avaya/newsroom/news-releases/2012/pr-120111

• Avaya IP Office 8.0 launches with comprehensive set of intuitive, easy-to-use collaboration capabilities for consumer-oriented mobile devices
• IP Office drives cost-savings and faster deployment of unified communications for small and mid-size businesses through new 'serverless' capabilities
• Avaya customer - Duluth Entertainment Convention Center - uses Avaya IP Office to run events with mobile workforce and cut communications costs in half  

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services, today unveiled Avaya IP Office 8.0 — the new version of the company's unified communications (UC) solution for small and mid-size enterprises (SME). The new version introduces a range of advancements for improving collaboration, including a comprehensive set of mobile capabilities that drive better team performance and keep mobile workers connected to their colleagues and customers wherever they go.

Full-Featured Business Mobility
The new mobility application for Avaya IP Office 8.0 — called one-X® Mobile Preferred for IP Office — enables users to access a comprehensive set of unified communications capabilities on Android-compatible devices now, and on iPhone devices in early 2012.

Key features of Avaya one-X Mobile Preferred for IP Office include:

• Full multi-party conference management via mobile device offers the ability to invite, view, mute and drop participants during a conference call. Users can set up voice conferences by selecting the participants and then, with one touch, initiate the group conference.
• Integrated presence enables users to display availability status to co-workers via mobile device (e.g. available, do not disturb), and show specific times of availability based on a user’s Microsoft® Outlook calendar. Unavailable workers can let colleagues follow them and receive an alert when availability resumes.
• Instant Messaging lets workers easily find business colleagues via an integrated corporate directory and begin a text chat with multiple co-workers simultaneously.
• 'Geopresence' displays one's location anywhere in the world, and is ideal for teams in places such as hospitals, hotels or companies where employees need to quickly identify a co-worker's physical location.
• Visual Voicemail lets users see all of their business voicemails on their mobile device with date/time information. Users can hear voicemail messages as they are being left in real-time and access a call in progress to converse.

Avaya's new one-X Mobile Preferred for IP Office application builds on the previously-available Essential Mobility solution for IP Office, a solution that extends voice capabilities such as one number access and call control. Essential Mobility is currently supported on Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhone devices (support for Android and Blackberry devices available in first quarter of 2012).

SMEs Gain Cost-Saving, Productivity Benefits Avaya IP Office 8.0 also offers new "serverless" collaboration capabilities delivered through an integrated unified communications module, called the Avaya C110 Unified Communications module.¹ This can eliminate the need for an external server in IP Office implementations, helping to simplify deployment for partners, reduce installation times and decrease equipment costs.

Additionally, new desktop IP Office plug-ins embed communications into popular business productivity applications, providing a more convenient way for workers to communicate via their preferred application. This enables users to:

• Use federated presence to bring Google Talk and IP Office contacts into Avaya one-X® Portal for IP Office—the company's 'all-in-one' communications portal for SMEs.
• Make and receive phone calls from a Salesforce.com® page.
• View directory contacts for Google Talk and IP Office in one location, with click-to-call and conference capabilities.
• Use visual voicemail within an employee's Microsoft® Outlook e-mail window.

Quotes:
Jeff Stark, technology director, Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (DECC), a 500 employee (full- and part-time) mid-size organization"In our business running a large convention center, you have to be two steps ahead of what is happening to meet client needs. One day we are serving a rock concert, the next a hockey game, so we need the best communications to meet all kinds of customer expectations. The mobility advancements in Avaya IP Office 8.0 are the most comprehensive we've seen, and will be essential in helping us run a location as large as the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center, where you never know where anyone is.

"We'll now have the ability to see who's available, where they are, and keep them connected into the team. Fast collaboration is essential for the 150-plus people we have dedicated to running a day's event at DECC, and we couldn't do it this effectively without Avaya IP Office.

"In terms of savings, Avaya IP Office makes it much more cost-effective for us to set up anything from a temporary office to a call center for clients at the DECC. We can estimate savings of up to fifty percent just by bringing in Avaya IP Office, not to mention the flexibility and ease-of-setup the system delivers."
(Note: Avaya Business Partner TelcoLogix helped implement IP Office for DECC.)

Justin Jaffe, research manager, SMB and Home Office Markets, IDC "Many general business and IT investment priorities cited by small and medium-sized businesses are associated with improving productivity by leveraging mobile communications and collaboration capabilities. Solutions like Avaya IP Office that are comprehensive, easy to integrate with existing infrastructure, and designed specifically for mobile SMB workers will be particularly attractive."

Other Facts:
--More than 60 percent of medium-sized firms in an online survey indicated that they provide smartphones to employees. Specific company percentages by country surveyed were:
United States 69 %; UK 70 %; Germany 79 %; China 64 %; Brazil 64 %. Source: IDC report²
--Small and mid-size business interest in adding UC technologies is considerable with more than 55% of midsize firms and more than 30% of small firms citing plans to buy UC components in the next 12 months. Source: IDC report³

For an online media kit on Avaya IP Office 8.0, visit www.avaya.com/news and click on Media Kits.


About Avaya: Avaya is a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, providing unified communications, contact centers, networking and related services to companies of all sizes around the world. For more information please visit www.avaya.com.

¹Available 1Q 2012
²IDC Report, Consumerization of IT in SMBs Worldwide, August 2011, Raymond Boggs
³IDC Report, Unified Communications in U.S. Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, October 2011, Justin Jaffe

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Synectic: Avaya's SME Partner of the Year

Oh happy day! Synectic Technologies has received a prestigious award from communications giant, Avaya, as its Small and Mid Enterprise (SME) Partner of the Year for 2011. Read all about it here, thanks to MarketWire.

Synectic Showcase Customer: Peninsula Eye Physicians

So happy to announce that Peninsula Eye Physicians has chosen Synectic Technologies to implement Avaya's IP Office for its growing practice. It's an honor to count Peninsula Eye Physicians as a client. To see what Peninsula Eye Physicians said about the implementation and IP Office, click here. To read the whole story, click here.

Unified Communications for Small Businesses

Here's a great video on how Avaya IP Office can help your small business can collaborate for accomplishing a goal. Synectic can help you do the same for your small business. Click to watch!

November is National Entrepreneurship Month!

President Obama declared that November is National Entrepreneurship Month. The U.S. Small Business Administration, is leveraging this declaration to entrepreneurship in a number of ways.

• The SBA launched the Student Startup Plan to help more college graduates learn how to lower their loan payments in order to get the “breathing room” they need to start a business.
• The SBA will host a Young Entrepreneurs Series (YES) to help more young people come together, exchange ideas, and get on a path toward building a viable business. We will start YES with young veterans in San Diego (Nov. 7) followed by young entrepreneurs from rural areas in Ames, Iowa (Nov. 9).
• The SBA is kicking off the “Apps for Entrepreneurs Challenge,” which starts this Saturday and runs through Nov. 20. It has $20,000 in prizes for the best mobile apps that help America’s entrepreneurs tap into federal programs to help them grow a business and create jobs.

The entire Administration has been highly focused on making sure entrepreneurs have the tools they need. After all, small businesses create about two of every three new jobs each year.

Your Customers Drive the Conversation!

Provide your customers and prospects with the right information, in the right context, at the right time. Often quoted data from Bain & Company states that if your customers are happy, they tend to be loyal. And if they’re loyal they not only buy more, they refer other customers. Bain & Company also found that, for many companies, an increase of 5% in customer retention can increase profits by 25% to 95%.