GITEX - the Middle East's largest technology exhibition and conference - has been taking place this week in Dubai. The event showcases some of the world's most cutting edge technologies with a specific focus this year placed on the capabilities of 5G connectivity. Now in its 39th iteration GITEX divides itself to segregate different areas of technology with dedicated zones. The communications hall includes some of the world's most renown brands including Huawei, Cisco, NEC and Avaya.
Grabbing the headlines recently - with news of its partnership with RingCentral - Avaya hold a prominent position at GITEX 2019 with a well-recognised international reputation. UC Today attended GITEX 2019 to bring you all the latest news updates and Avaya did not hold back with a series of announcements.
New CCaaS Platform and Partnership with Microsoft
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Avaya and Microsoft's partnership being announced in a press conference at GITEX 2019[/caption]
With years of experience in the contact centre industry Avaya has been one of the market leaders when it comes to customer experience platforms. At GITEX 2019 Avaya announced its latest development in the market. Joining forces with Microsoft, Avaya unveiled IX-CC. Avaya IX-CC is a cloud native Contact Centre as-a-Service platform offering customers rapid and flexible deployment options. The new platform will be available on Azure hosted in Microsoft’s cloud data centres in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Although initially availability of the new solution will be confined to the Gulf region, Avaya have confirmed that it will be expanded to partners and customers globally over the coming months.
UC Today spoke to Avaya International's Vice President and CTO, Ahmed Helmy, during GITEX 2019 to find out more. Helmy explains that Avaya have developed the new solution from the ground up as next generation cloud native solution. In development for over 18 months, IX-CC, will form the core architecture and infrastructure platform for Avaya's new CCaaS offering. The partnership with Microsoft - as well as offering hosted infrastructure benefits - will also be utilised to enable new go-to-market possibilities for Avaya's new platform.
"We have been very focused on building the right technology and architecture for our CCaaS offering. This is the right partnership with one of the strongest cloud players so we can offer our technology through a real multi-tenant architecture to any type of customer."
Helmy went on to tell us how the new solution will offer a range different benefits to business of all sizes and verticals. Small and medium businesses can leverage the speed of deployment, flexibility and economy of the solution but it also offers enterprise organisations a transition path to cloud solutions. Private cloud and dedicated instances within a public cloud will all be available as options for customers. Avaya have enriched the new IX-CC solution with a host of contact centre features from existing Avaya solutions but are also looking to expand its capabilities with new enhancements made possible by its cloud native architecture.
Innovations for IX Workplace UC Portfolio
Avaya also utilised GITEX to preview a host of new upcoming enhancements which will be added to its IX Workplace portfolio. IX Workplace encompasses Avaya's suite of unified communications capabilities including collaboration, calling and meeting functionality as well as the option to connect with the range of Avaya endpoint devices. The main addition to the portoflio is the introduction of Avaya IX OneSpace which will provide a consolidated UC client where users can optimise and manage their use of the Avaya UC tool suite.
