Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region is witnessing an increase in demand for advanced business class IP telephony.

The rapidly growing small and medium businesses (SMB) sector in the Middle East and Africa region is driving the demand for internet protocol (IP) telephony implementation, as reflected by a recent survey conducted by Avaya, a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services.

Following the partnership with Avaya in the US, Netgear, a worldwide provider of technologically advanced, branded networking products, has expressed its intention to support the communication vendor’s advanced business-class internet telephony solution targeting the SMB market in the Middle East, the company said in a statement.

The company had also participated at the recently-concluded Mena Business Partner Conference 2008, an event organised by Avaya, which introduced the ‘Avaya Quick Edition’ to more than 300 Avaya authorized business partners from the Mena region, it added.

Avaya Quick Edition is an innovative peer-to-peer phone system for locations with 40 users or less.

According to recent statistics, the annual shipment for IP phones reached the 10 million unit mark in 2006, and the global market for IP telephony shows a promising future with expectations of further growth up to 164 million units by 2010 and $15 billion worth of IT services related to IP telephony migration within the next five years.

Reflecting the international scenario in IP technologies adoption, Avaya’s survey, which was administered during a recent 14-city road show in the region, further revealed that 71 per cent of the 1,000 decision makers-respondents are ready to deploy IP telephony solutions.

“IP telephony is steadily gaining popularity within the ever-growing SMB sector as the technology promotes efficiency and professional interaction with customers and callers while holding down administrative and financial costs,” said Avaya’s SME Channel Manager for Mena Khalid Khan.

“Through the convergence of our intelligent communications applications with Netgear’s experience in business-class networking, regional customers can benefit from an end-to-end solution and an effective communication tool, which facilitates operational efficiency.”

Avaya Quick Edition is an IP telephony solution with system intelligence built into each Quick Edition IP phone. It is a professional phone system tailored to the needs of small businesses or branches of large enterprises supporting the most commonly used telephony applications including voicemail, conferencing and auto-attendant.

“We have recognised the unique needs of small and medium enterprises for IP telephony solutions, which go beyond providing the functions of a basic phone system. With the success of our partnership with Avaya in the US, we are looking forward to delivering an easy to deploy, cost efficient and reliable IP telephony solution in the Middle East. We are excited to introduce the Avaya Quick Edition Bundle to the region as it provides a unique, innovative and powerful solution for businesses with less than 40 phones,” said Netgear Middle East Channel Sales Manager Ahmed Zeidan.

Netgear is a platinum-level member of the Avaya Dev Connect program, which is an initiative to develop, market, and sell innovative third-party products that interoperate with Avaya technology.

By promoting the development, compliance testing and co-marketing of products that are compatible with standards-based by Avaya technologies, companies are able to capitalise on their network investment while opening opportunities for business development.

The Avaya DevConnect programme currently includes thousands of software and hardware developer companies, integrators, service providers and customers from around the world. – TradeArabia News Service