Avaya's partners to exclusively distribute new meetings platform

Avaya has announced the global availability of a new, cloud-based video conferencing and collaboration service, Avaya Equinox Meetings Online.

The service is available exclusively through Avaya channel partners and aims to bring participants together from around the globe, across different systems and devices without investments in new infrastructure.

The service is hosted and operated by Avaya, with the company's channel partners in nearly 30 countries offering it to their customers for audio, video, data and content sharing, with more countries being added over time.

The subscription-based service provides customers with unlimited use of virtual meeting rooms that support up to 50 participants.

Equinox Meetings Online is built on Avaya's Team Engagement technologies platform, providing wideband audio and video up to 1080p HD.

Yogen Patel, Avaya vice president and GM of engagement applications says, "The global demand for easy to use video conferencing and collaboration capabilities has never been greater as employees, suppliers, and customers in distributed locations need to quickly come together.

"As a cloud-based service, Avaya Equinox Meetings Online delivers superb quality, simplicity and affordability, offering a great opportunity for our channel partners as well as their customers."

The platform is designed so that desktop and mobile participants connect into a cloud-based meeting through a link in an email or calendar invitation, with encryption keeping sessions secure.

Avaya says the platform reduces or eliminates the need for companies to invest in new infrastructure to support video conferencing and collaboration sessions.

Meetings can incorporate a range of vendor room systems, including Avaya Scopia, Cisco, Polycom and Lifesize, which Avaya says is beyond the basic connectivity capacity typically provided by competing cloud offers.

The service enables full conference control and moderation as well as content sharing, including the ability to receive text chat on room systems.

Avaya says Equinox Meetings Online also addresses the limitations of mobile devices, network variables, congestion issues and security concerns to deliver a quality experience that helps ensure productivity on the go.

According to Avaya, the platform provides an opportunity for channel partners, who it says can maintain the customer relationships while leveraging the growing demand for cloud-based services.