BANGALORE, INDIA: With the introduction of 3G services, UC (unified communication) systems of the future will have more tools working seamlessly together, allowing users to move from one form of communication to the next without a break in the flow of conversation says Samir Gulve, Chairman & Managing Director, Avaya India Pvt Ltd in an interview with CIOL. Excerpts:

CIOL: What new features are being planned by Avaya for UC products as 3G services have now been launched in major Indian cities ?

Samir Gulve: Organizations planning to adopt UC can look forward to even more communication tools working seamlessly together, allowing users to move from one form of communication to the next without a break in the flow of conversation. For example, two co-workers on IM can easily bring in a colleague or supplier into a real-time video meeting over IP, on his 3G mobile phone.

Another powerful capability can be found by incorporating UC into the Contact Center or Customer Service area. Contact Center can leverage on 3G to provide interactive voice and video response (IVVR) service. With IVVR in place, contact centers can show callers relevant videos such as promotions, new product  announcements, advertisements, etc., while they are waiting in queue.

Contact Centers can also use IVVR to boost their self-service strategy by enabling the callers to complete transactions, such as seats reservations, appointments, etc., in the IVVR system. Avaya is paving the way with interactive video, including the use of 3G video cell phones, Internet videophones, and video-enabled personal computers. By using video, in addition to the Avaya Voice Portal's speech recognition capabilities, application developers can show callers' menu choices, product options, instructional video clips, as well as dynamic information such as personal account information, airline flight options, and current stock prices.

CIOL: What is the latest from Avaya on virtualization and unified communications front ?

SG: Avaya, recently announced new Unified Communications applications and devices to increase business user productivity. New applications and devices provide business users with greater flexibility and more efficient communications, while lowering the cost of operation to the enterprise.

In several industry firsts, Avaya is delivering a range of UC technologies to enable employees to be more productive. These include the first media phone for enterprises, new low-power phones, wireless-to-cellular mobile integration with DiVitas Networks, and a USB stick that enables users to instantly make any compatible desk phone within the company their own. The new technologies include additions to the Avaya one-X series desk phones.

CIOL: Security is an issue while using UC products in the SaaS environment. What efforts are being made to check the same ?

SG: It is important to note that security is an ongoing practice of procedures and improvements that help reduce the likelihood of a "break-in," but do not guarantee that your network cannot be compromised if the right opportunity is presented.

At Avaya, we continue to work with our customers, so as to engineer our UC solutions for different environments, such that the same level of security, monitoring and control as any other mission-critical piece of equipment are kept protected by using practices and procedures that are generally accepted as appropriate for equipment of this importance.

The Avaya Professional Services Organization is also available to assist customers in assessing their current network design and making suggestions for improvement.

CIOL: What about seamless integration of Avaya UC products in a Microsoft environment ?

SG: We work closely with Microsoft to integrate our UC capabilities with their desktop applications. We believe that no single vendor will be able to provide all the unified communications applications to fit a company's needs, and the customer should have the right to integrate new and existing applications from preferred vendors.

With Avaya and Microsoft, two market leaders come together to provide high value, integrated, real-time and non real-time communications that are tested and proven for interoperability.