IP communications vendor Avaya has announced Distributed Office, a session initiation protocol (SIP)-based comms package targeting enterprises with predominantly large-scale branch office facilities.

Because the majority of enterprise employees – estimates from Avaya put the figure over 90 percent - are not located in firms’ head offices, companies often roll out disparate IT communications packages. According to Avaya, these could impact employee productivity and have knock-on effects on customer service.

In a statement, Avaya said that Distributed Office can be "pre-configured at the factory based on a business’s preferences, which reduces on-site install and deployment time and ensures consistent delivery of the same communications capabilities across each branch office". The call processing functions and applications are distributed to the branch, which reduces latency and improves WAN utilisation, but the system is managed by IT staff at the firm’s headquarters, using centralised management tools through a single interface.

Avaya Distributed Office is available now from Avaya and their certified resellers in North America, and select European and Asian countries. Avaya Distributed Office and Avaya one-X Deskphone Value Edition can also be obtained through HP as an option within its “Branch of the Future” systems for retail banks.

Avaya is a leading vendor of IP comms systems but lacks the scale of rivals such as Cisco and Nortel. However, there have been reports today of merger negotiations taking place, with possible bidders being Nortel and private equity firms. As a result, Avaya's stock price currently is up 15 percent.