Avaya Signs VoIP Deal For Vanguard

Avaya (News - Alert) Inc. , a vendor of business communications applications, systems and services, has announced that it has been selected by Vanguard, the second largest mutual fund firm in the U.S., for IP Telephony networking, applications and more than 18,000 IP endpoints around the world.

The contract also includes project design, implementation and management, plus five years of maintenance services provided by Avaya Global Services.

Avaya will design and build a centralized, IP Telephony-based architecture that Vanguard officials estimate will enable Vanguard to reduce costs by more than $1 million annually. The savings will come by consolidating communications servers by nearly 90 percent.

From the core of the network, Avaya MultiVantage Communications Applications will extend from locations over Vanguard's corporate WAN to all of the company's locations, including its headquarters, contact centers, operational centers, and regional offices.

Vanguard officials hope the network will enable Vanguard to “quickly adapt to business growth and changing strategies by providing expanded scalability and flexibility, resulting in a lower total cost of ownership for the company.” They expect better business continuity “through server redundancy at the top of the network and survivable gateways on the local level.”

Avaya Global Services will provide design, project management, implementation and ongoing maintenance services for Vanguard.

Vanguard manages more than $995 billion in U.S. mutual fund assets, including more than $275 billion in employer-sponsored retirement plans.

In related news, Australian industry observer Lilia Guan is reporting that Avaya has terminated a five-year partnership with Touchbase “after the integrator refused to sign a new contract which restricted its ability to offer services.”

Guan reports that Magnus Maynard, managing director, Touchbase  said his company refused to agree to stipulations which restricted its service capabilities, in Guan’s words.

“Avaya asked us to sign a new contract that precluded us from providing services to our client base and limited services to others. We had our contract terminated on the 28 February," Maynard told Guan, saying the integrator was getting on with business and has received support from its other vendor partners, Cisco and Genesys (News - Alert).

Maynard assured Guan the dispute was only between the local branches of the integrator and the vendor, saying “It's the local branch of Avaya that no longer has a relationship with Touchbase… the relationship between the global companies was still strong, particularly in the UK and Europe.”

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims’ columnist page.

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