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Avaya and BT to collaborate on unified communications

Comms vendor and carrier sign three-year extension to partnership and look to work together on higher-end technology

Having worked together for a decade, BT and Avaya are looking to widen the scope of their relationship

Comms vendor Avaya and telco BT are looking to deepen their partnership and explore new areas including voice and unified communications (UC).

BT and Avaya have worked together for 10 years. The carrier's global services arm was one of the first channel players to declare its commitment to Avaya's channel programme, unveiled in November 2009.

Today it was announced that the two companies' global working relationship has been extended for another three years. The partnership has long been based on Avaya's contact centre kit and BT's technology consultancy skills. But the firms are now looking to team up on higher-end technology, such as UC.

Neil Sutton, vice president of global portfolio at BT Global Services, said: "Our customers are asking us to look at real business issues and develop solutions that deliver not just definable benefits, but solid returns on investment. Our ongoing relationship with Avaya helps us to further grow and innovate our portfolio of networked IT services, giving us the ability to deliver solutions to our customers on the vendor platforms most suited to their business."

Since Avaya's acquisition of fallen rival Nortel, the vendor's relationship with BT has been under close scrutiny from the comms industry. Nortel and BT had long enjoyed a very strong relationship, signing a four-year partnership as recently as May 2009. This was four months after Nortel entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and just two months before Avaya agreed a deal to buy the firm.

Mark Mitchell, Avaya's EMEA head of service providers, said: “This expanded relationship with BT demonstrates our commitment to ensuring the best available experience and maximum choice for our Avaya customers. We are looking forward to another successful decade working together with BT.”