Avaya Intelligent Presence solves the challenge of integrating diverse sources of presence information from different vendor platforms using multiple protocols. Intelligent Presence aggregates telephony, desktop and application presence information from Avaya and third party sources, such as those from Microsoft, IBM and others, and bridges industry standard protocols including SIP/SIMPLE and XMPP. This multi-vendor, multi-protocol support provides the most comprehensive information about a user’s availability. The more holistic the view of the employee’s presence, the more accurate the contact between employees, customers, partners and suppliers can be – and ultimately more useful in supporting presence-aware applications.
“Intelligent Presence will power real-time business communications – eliminating barriers to responsiveness such as location, time of day, type of network, platform, channel or device,” said Stuart Wells, senior vice president and president, Global Communications Solutions, Avaya. “Avaya Intelligent Presence is at the heart of enabling presence-aware communications and applications that bring new levels of collaboration among workers and competitive advantage for businesses.”
International Speedway, an Avaya customer, operates 12 well-known racetracks located around the U.S., including Daytona International Speedway, Talledega Superspeedway and others. The company is already using Microsoft Office Communicator desktop client, and sees the value of integrating the application with Avaya one-X Portal for enhanced presence information.
“We have people spread out all over the U.S at different tracks and traveling,” said Bob Shafto, Director IT Operations, International Speedway Corporation. “The key with Intelligent Presence is that if an individual is traveling and attached to the system, it will pick up their availability and accessibility. You’ll know if they are available by cell, IM, or other means – somehow, you can communicate with them.”
With Intelligent Presence, workers quickly and easily reach the right person needed, across different vendor platforms, channels and devices for more efficient interactions with internal and external contacts. When embedded into business applications and processes, this information automatically connects those who need to take action on an issue through the communications channel on which they can be reached. The server automates presence and availability updates and at the same time, allows users or enterprises to apply rules and policies to govern presence information exchange. For example, an employee can selectively segment who can reach them and by what means.
“Presence is considered a must-have for unified communications. What’s needed to take presence to the next level is the ability to tap both new and existing sources of information and develop presence-aware communications and applications that cross protocols and vendors,” said Brian Riggs, research director, Current Analysis.
The Avaya Intelligent Presence Server is based on the highly scalable, multi-protocol Jabber Extensible Communications Platform™ (Jabber XCP™).
“Presence is the on-ramp to unified communications, connecting users, services and devices for continuous real-time communications,” said Paul Guerin, CEO of Jabber. “Avaya’s experience in real-time communications combined with Jabber’s addition of SIP/SIMPLE support to their proven XMPP presence technology creates a powerful combination uniquely available in Avaya Intelligent Presence.”
Avaya Intelligent Presence supports existing presence and telephony platforms, and provides a centralized system for managing and enforcing presence policies.
Avaya Intelligent Presence provides a common set of services on which innovative, presence-aware applications can be developed supporting unified communications, customer service and communications-enabled business processes. As Avaya extends presence-awareness into these industry-leading communication applications, they will enable faster customer service and more efficient processes by more effectively bringing people and resources to bear. For example, new presence-aware customer care operations can quickly identify and link available expert resources to customers using standard desktop software like Microsoft Office Communicator, IBM Lotus Sametime or Jabber XCP, or presence-aware automated notification can enable more rapid response to process issues by ensuring that employees are reached in the fastest possible way.
Avaya Intelligent Presence will be available in the second quarter this year and included within the Unified Communications Standard Edition and supported with Avaya one-X™ clients and endpoints, including one-X Portal, one-X Communicator and one-X Deskphones. Soft clients will provide a single interface from which to view accurate, reliable presence status and select the most effective, efficient communication channel, including click to call or click to conference, with or without video.
Avaya Intelligent Presence will integrate with Microsoft Office Communicator in the second quarter, and later this year with IBM Lotus Sametime and Microsoft Exchange. Avaya will also issue an SDK that allows Avaya DevConnect members and customers to build and integrate solutions to Avaya Intelligent Presence.