Avaya, Juniper Unveil Marketing Agreement

The companies seek to give enterprises ways to secure their networks while increasing productivity.

Avaya and Juniper Networks unveiled a joint marketing agreement to deliver end-to-end IP networking systems to enterprises seeking converged communications with a high level of security. The arrangement combines Avayas experience in IP telephone technologies with Junipers networking and security experience. The new offerings include distributed IP telephony, secure IP telephony on any network, virtual contact center and enterprise mobility.
Enterprises can enhance these offerings by adding capabilities such as secure SIP communications and WAN acceleration. By combining their technologies, the two companies aim to give enterprises ways to secure their networks while simultaneously increasing productivity, they said. For example, an enterprise could install a firewall, router or a virtual private network from Juniper along with call center or converged communications technologies from Avaya to simultaneously enhance the security and performance of the network. Avaya will provide professional services for the Juniper products incorporated in the joint offerings, including assistance in planning, designing and deploying the systems. Avaya will also provide managed services for enterprises using Juniper networking products. Click here to read more about Avayas speech self-service tools. Juniper reported strong growth for 2005, with net revenues of $575.5 million for the fourth quarter, an increase of 34 percent over the fourth quarter of 2004. With revenues of more than $2 billion for the full year, the company saw growth of 54 percent over 2004. "Juniper remains at the intersection of opportunity, where the increasing and strategic importance of todays network demands the integrated best-in-class solutions that the company was built to deliver," said Scott Kriens, chairman and CEO, upon announcing the quarterly results Jan. 25. Avaya, which announced financial results Jan. 23 for its first fiscal quarter of 2006, reported a revenue increase of 8.8 percent over the first quarter of 2005, rising from $1.148 billion to $1.249 billion. Revenues for the companys professional services unit, Avaya Global Services, grew 5.8 percent over the same period. Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, views and analysis on servers, switches and networking protocols for the enterprise and small businesses.