IP gateway opens vistas for Index
Avaya's telephone system will benefit from increased options
Avaya has bulked out its ageing Index phone system with a connection to its IP Office telephony platform.
The addition provides improved voicemail options and call forwarding, and is accompanied by a software update for Index, according to the vendor.
"The idea of the Index media gateway is to connect Index and IP Office together," said Richard Pitt, sales director at Avaya's Small and Medium Business Solutions (SMBS) group in the UK and Eire.
"Index launched in 1995, and it is reaching the limits of the architecture. We have had to take a significant step and replace the CPU with IP Office. This still uses the rest of the Index system."
Once in place, the IP Office system would take over the running of the Index analogue and digital extensions and cards, Pitt added.
Having carried out research among its 1.5 million Index users in Europe and Asia/Pacific, Avaya found that they preferred to add extra applications to existing systems. This led to the addition of a media gateway linking Index IP and IP Office.
"We've updated the Index software to version 11. The last update was in July last year," said Nick Brasier, global director of product management for Index and IP Office at Avaya SMBS.
The improvements fall into three categories, said Brasier. First, in response to customers wanting to improve their customer services; multiple voicemail messages can now be created for different situations.
The second set of changes concern mobility. Index users can now dial into voicemail from home or mobile phones and bypass or reduce authentication.
Finally, whereas most call centre phones are locked out when not in use, Index users can now call an emergency number from any phone, regardless of whether they are logged in or not.
"We are selling fewer systems than we sold last year," said Brasier.
"But Index sales revenues are doing better than we expected. We're selling new systems because the product still does the job, or because people want to add to a network of Indexes."
Steve Norman, sales director at distributor Rocom, said his firm had maintenance contracts for a large number of Index systems.
"We have a good maintenance base of Index, and we sell in parts and change-outs," he said.
"Because we don't have a direct relationship with Avaya, we also recommend other systems. But when a product comes to the end of its life, people hang on, especially if the product is as good as Index.
"The problem we face is that, when we are replacing like with like, maintenance revenues are lower. And when customers go for an IP system, they are more likely to fiddle with it once it's on the network, so the number of call-outs climbs and we lose profitability on the contract."