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Avaya's new pricing strategy for Unified Communications, called All-in-One, has the potential for raising the deployment of UC tools to a new level.

Here's another post from Allan Sulkin:

Avaya's new pricing strategy for Unified Communications, called Unified Communications All Inclusive, has the potential for raising the deployment of UC tools to a new level. Avaya has sidestepped the price barrier, a major inhibitor for customer adoption of any new communications tool, by bundling station licenses for six UC options into its Communications Manager Enterprise Edition software package, at no cost to the customer. Customers receive the UC licenses if they install or have Communications Manager Enterprise Edition Release 5.0 or 5.1. The UC tools were previously packaged as part of Avaya's UC Standard Edition pricing package.Enterprise Edition is designed for customers with multi-site networking requirements, e.g., multiple systems or remote local survivability. For customers with Communications Manager Standard Edition Release 5.x, the six station licenses are available at a cost of only $50 per station user. List prices for the licenses, if purchased separately, would have collectively been greater than $660. Hardware requirements, such as Intelligence Presence Server or Applications Enablement Services (AES) Server, are not included as part of the pricing package.

A primary reason Avaya was motivated to restructure its pricing is to be more competitive against Cisco Systems and its bundled Unified Workspace Licensing offer.

The six Avaya UC options are divided into three categories: Desktop (one-X Communicator, Microsoft OCS or IBM Sametime); Teleworker (one-X Portal, VPNremote); Mobility (Extension to Cellular, one-X Mobile). More details:

* one-X Communicator is Avaya's just-shipped desktop PC client designed to replace earlier H.323 and SIP solutions

* As implied, a Microsoft OCS or IBM Sametime station license supports interoperability with the respective desktop application software provider's UC offer

* one-X Portal is a desktop client for Web browser access to the IP telephony system.

* VPNremote is software embedded in Avaya IP telephone instruments to enable secure connections for teleworkers

* Extension to Cellular enables virtually any cellular handset to be used as an twinning extension behind Avaya's Communications Manager IP telephony system platform for placing and receiving calls

* one-X Mobile is the client for a wide range of cellular smartphones

Avaya also announced price cuts for its Communications Manager generic software, one-X 9600 IP desktop telephone instruments; the first installed Local Survivable Processor (LSP) or Enterprise Survivable Server (ESS); the S8500 LSP; Modular Messaging (hardware and software); Meeting Exchange Express and Web Conferencing software; and Avaya IQ (analytical reporting for contact centers). New business partner (dealer) discounts for software support services will also be implemented.

Although pricing is not the only customer purchase decision factor, it usually ranks at or near the top of the list. Contrary to popular belief, Avaya's prices before this week's restructuring were not always higher than the competition. In fact, Avaya prices are often very competitive when competitors are forced to meet the performance level of an Avaya system proposal. My annual VoiceCon Orlando RFP tutorial is proof of this.

The problem may have been that Avaya and its distributors often failed to push customers to demand comparable performance capabilities from the competition: Lower priced, lower performance competitive solutions often won the sale. The system performance bar must be set high enough to force the competition to add to its solution price in order to match Avaya's capabilities.

Avaya has taken a very aggressive approach in its pricing restructure, something not traditionally associated with the system supplier. They immediately establish themselves at the front of the UC vendor line and enable their customers to take advantage of current UC capabilities without first shelling out hundreds of dollars per license. Including enhanced enterprise communications system features and functions as part of the standard--i.e., not optionally priced--IP telephony system offer is something systems suppliers have been doing for many years, and is something I call "The Trickle Down Theory of PBX System Pricing." Enhanced features and functions that are optionally priced at a premium when first introduced to the market and targeted at high end customers are eventually targeted at smaller line size customers, and finally included at no price as part of the standard offer. Early feature examples of the trickle down theory were Least Cost Routing and Call Detail Recording. These once-premium PBX features are today standard with small KTS/Hybrid systems. Other examples include private networking, voice mail, and IP telephony.Avaya's new pricing strategy for Unified Communications, called All-in-One, has the potential for raising the deployment of UC tools to a new level.