Avaya announced today it would move to integrate its communications products with the Google Apps initiative, giving Google a partner with enterprise chops in its battle against Microsoft for the hearts and minds of corporate IT.
The holy grail of integrated communications — marrying voice with IM, email and presence applications — is a yet-unrealized promise, one that has brought Microsoft and Nortel together most recently. Avaya says its partnership with Google will focus first on integration with Avaya’s IP Office product, an IP telephony suite for small- and medium-sized businesses, with availability scheduled for later this year. By then, we should have heard more from Cisco as well. For enterprise IT, the competition can only be a welcome thing.
Here is a head-to-head comparison of Google Apps and Microsoft Office Live, via the good folks at WebWorkerDaily who make an argument for both offerings, and what makes sense for whom.
wouldn’t the “right” thing to do be for Google to have a SIP interface so that it’s not Avaya or Cisco or anyone in particuliar but an open standard instead?
YES !
I think IBM still plays a major role in corporate IT context and I’m surprised that its role is not mentioned here
The Avaya integration is pretty cool. But there should be more CTI integration to come… the API of Google Apps make that possible. For example we are developing an FREE open source “business application platform” (think salesforce.com). Our first application is working tightly integrated with GOOGLE APPS. http://www.applicationexchange.com.