Avaya Cloud Office Offers New Features Enhancing Cloud Communications for Global Businesses Going Forward to the New World of Hybrid Work

Avaya device-specific Capabilities Deliver Differentiated UCaaS Solution to Call, Meet, Message and More in the Cloud

Avaya and RingCentral Inc. announced a wide range of new capabilities for the Avaya Cloud Office™ by RingCentral Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solution, including many Avaya device-specific enhancements providing easy migration, additional video and global expansion features extending the ability for customers to connect across any device and work environment.

“Instead of going back to work, employees will be going ‘forward to work’ in a new way – using cloud-based communications as part of a digital workplace and hybrid work model, and we are further enhancing Avaya Cloud Office to address their needs”

The past year has seen significant growth in the adoption of cloud-based unified communications applications, and research shows that 55 percent¹ of organizations will adopt UCaaS solutions by the end of 2021. Additionally, over 87 percent¹ of these organizations will continue to support remote work in 2021 and beyond, so it is critical that their communications solutions are capable of supporting work across multiple locations and devices. Avaya Cloud Office is now available in 13 countries, enabling organizations of all kinds to digitally transform their workforce communications. Avaya Cloud Office was also recently recognized with a MeritStar Award from Metrigy, ranking 2^nd among all providers in terms of positive customer sentiment, ahead of Microsoft, Zoom and others.

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The new Avaya Cloud Office features announced today fall into three key customer benefit areas:

Easy Migration to Cloud Communications

• Visual Voicemail – For voicemail as it was meant to be. Navigate voice messages on your desk phone screen, view transcripts or listen to messages, and perform a number of operations like delete, forward, and call back, by using the desk phone buttons.
• Bridged Call Appearance – Enables a primary number to appear on multiple phones, so delegates can act on behalf of the phone number owner to: call on behalf, hold, pickup within the group, share a line, or join calls. Delegates can act as the owner of the line – not only answering calls, but initiating the calls on behalf of the owner. This is especially convenient in the manager/admin assistant scenario.
• Park & Page – Initiated with the press of a button, which invokes a page to a defined group, and enables an “Answer” soft key for anyone in the group.
• Group Call Pickup – Allows any member of a designated group to be notified when a group member receives an incoming call, and they can answer if the intended recipient is unavailable, by simply pressing the pickup key on their phone.

New Ways to Connect Over Video

• Avaya Cloud Office Rooms – Combined with an Avaya Collaboration Unit, Avaya Cloud Office turns any workspace into a conference room. For a wide range of rooms, from home to office, huddle spaces or large boardrooms, and using one or two displays, this feature is the perfect solution for getting everyone together, wherever they are.
• Avaya Vantage^TM – The Avaya Vantage portfolio of smart devices offers a new always-on high quality audio and video option for Avaya Cloud Office as well as one-touch access to favorite cloud-based apps and productivity-boosting AI tools such as Amazon Alexa.
• Plug and Play USB devices – Avaya offers additional USB cameras and audio-conferencing devices, and a docking station to help users connect everything, including your display and laptop, while running Avaya Cloud Office.

Global Expansion Capabilities

• EU Essentials package now available – Avaya Cloud Office is available in four license tiers including Essential, Standard, Premium, and Ultimate. The Essential tier has now been added to the following EU countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain.
• New default data residency – To facilitate data residency requirements in certain markets, Avaya Cloud Office customer data is now stored in-country by default, without the need for Opt-In, in the following markets: U.S., Canada, Germany and the U.K.
• More Global Office markets added – Customers can extend their global reach even further, with Global Office licenses now expanding to over forty countries including Greece, Slovenia, Estonia and South Africa. Global Office licenses extend the ability of organizations in the thirteen Avaya Cloud Office markets to include staff from additional countries that can be billed through the home office license.

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“Instead of going back to work, employees will be going ‘forward to work’ in a new way – using cloud-based communications as part of a digital workplace and hybrid work model, and we are further enhancing Avaya Cloud Office to address their needs,” said Dennis Kozak, Avaya SVP, Global Channel Sales. “We are making it easier for organizations to migrate to cloud, and providing more ways to connect and communicate across home and office locations and multiple devices, providing the flexibility and agility that enables successful hybrid work environments.”

“As both a master agent and value-added distributor for Avaya, we are excited about the new features added to Avaya Cloud Office,” said Patrick Howard, Vice President of Vendor Management and Marketing, Jenne. “By incorporating these Avaya-specific features on Avaya devices exclusively with the Avaya Cloud Office UCaaS offering, Avaya and RingCentral are delivering a best-in-class solution that allows enterprises of all sizes to migrate to the cloud while still communicating efficiently and in the manner in which they are accustomed – all accomplished with world class collaboration tools for our agents and resellers.”

Avaya Cloud Office was recognized with the 2020 Unified Communications Excellence Award and a 2020 Communications Solution of the Year Award for enabling enterprises to leverage cloud communications to digitally transform their workforce engagement. Digital.com has also named Avaya Cloud Office as one of the Best Business Phone Services of 2021 for its calling and meeting features, as well as service plans, a cost-saving equipment management model, SIP trunking, extensive support and the Best VOIP Phone Services Of 2020 based on the variety of feature-rich, cloud-based phone system packages.

“UCaaS adoption continues to rapidly grow, with more than 47 percent of companies using it now, and almost 40 percent of those still operating on-premise phone systems evaluating or planning to adopt UCaaS by the end of 2021,” says Irwin Lazar, President and Principal Analyst, Metrigy. “These new Avaya Cloud Office features will make it easier for companies to obtain the benefits of cloud-based communications by enabling support for required call management capabilities, as well as by adding new capabilities to streamline voice messaging.”

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