Avaya Presents First Ever Global Virtual Technology Summit on Intelligent Business Communications

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Feb. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IP telephony provider Avaya and its technology alliance companies IBM, HP, SAP, Juniper, Nokia and Extreme Networks announced today a collaboration to form the first ever virtual summit dedicated to connecting business communications applications with people, information and networks. The summit will explore "what's possible" for businesses when they apply IP telephony to productivity, the customer experience, and business continuity and security.

Attendees, including CIOs and information technology (IT) directors and managers of both large enterprise and mid-market sized organizations, are invited to gain insight on the significance of IP telephony and debate how intelligent communications can be an asset for competitive differentiation. The format will be an online forum consisting of keynote speeches, live Web chats and panel discussions, featuring distinguished speakers representing the business communications industry.

According to the Lippis Report, an industry report published by the CEO of Lippis Enterprises and Avaya Technology Summit panelist, Nick Lippis, "The next three years will be crucial for the industry as most enterprises choose an IP telephony vendor, locking in market share for years to come. Today, Avaya is poised to break away from its competitors thanks to its focus on professional services and the creation of a developer's ecosystem around a new application development platform that is based upon Web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA)."

Gary Beach, keynote speaker and publisher of CIO Magazine, will discuss the need to create business value through IP telephony and more intelligent communications. With more than 17 years of experience in IT publishing, Gary is poised to give an independent viewpoint on the state of IP telephony and discuss how businesses can derive value from an intelligent communications solution. Tom Lesica, CIO of Avaya, will discuss during his keynote speech how intelligent communications will help businesses differentiate themselves, accelerate business growth and build customer satisfaction and loyalty. Tom will also showcase the largest intelligent communications solution in the world implemented for the 2006 FIFA World Cup network.

The three panel discussions are: * "What's possible in productivity?" The session will feature dialogue between Avaya customer, Kevin McPhee, Manager of Network Control and Converged Solutions at First Health / Coventry; Avaya technology alliance company IBM (Roger Schwanhausser, Director, Operational Efficiency Services), SAP (Mary Cauwels, Director of Solution Marketing for mySAP CRM); Nokia (Lior Nir, Director of Product Marketing Enterprise Voice Solutions - North America.); Analyst, Jim Metzler, Vice President, Ashton Metzler & Associates; and Saied Seghatoleslami, Vice President of Product Management for the Communication Appliances Division at Avaya. * "What's Possible with the Customer Experience?" It will include insights from Avaya customer, Joy Larkin, Sr. Director Enterprise Voice Services of McGraw-Hill; Avaya technology alliance company HP (Keith Landers, Chief Technologist); Analyst, Nick Lippis, President, Lippis Consulting; and Zack Taylor, Sales Vice President for Avaya's Global Solution Sales. * "What's Possible in Business Continuity and Security?" This panel will feature viewpoints from Avaya customer, Randy Cleghorne, Director of IT Planning and Management of the Visiting Nurse Services of New York; Avaya partner, Extreme Networks (Suresh Gopalakrishnan, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management) and Juniper Networks (Shrikant Latkar, Sr. Manager, Juniper Networks); Analyst, Ken McGee, Vice President, Gartner; and Joe Curcio, Vice President of Security Technology Development at Avaya.

In addition to the keynote and panel discussions, the Virtual Technology Summit will feature a virtual "Exhibition Hall" consisting of more than 45 exhibitions for attendees to gain valuable insights from industry leaders. Each venue of the Exhibition Hall will highlight Avaya solutions and alliances, premier technology partners that offer end-to-end solutions; access to technology experts for chat and discussion; opportunity to schedule one-on-one briefings with Avaya and their premier technology partners, peer-to-peer networking opportunities, and a resource center stocked with white papers, case studies, and demonstrations.

The summit will take place on March 9, 2006, starting at 9:00 a.m. EST, with the Exhibition Hall open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. For those who cannot attend the March 9 event, or want to revisit it, a replay of the summit will be available on demand until June 9, at http://www.techsummitavaya.com/. For more information, please visit http://www.techsummitavaya.com/.

About Avaya

Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than 1 million businesses worldwide, including over 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500(R). Focused on businesses large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable Internet Protocol (IP) telephony systems and communications software applications and services.

Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications -- and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services -- Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. For more information visit the Avaya website: http://www.avaya.com/.

First Call Analyst: FCMN Contact: jvarman@avaya.com