Plantronics today announced an expansion of its 40-year business and technology relationship with Avaya to deliver Unified Communications (UC) and Customer Service (CC) solutions that help companies improve business collaboration and reduce operating costs. Plantronics has been named Avaya preferred headset provider to bring unparalleled audio quality, reliability and ease-of-use to enterprise business users. Plantronics and Avaya are working together to jointly introduce future voice solutions that take advantage of Avaya’s suite of collaboration applications toprovide a new level of communication intelligence to customers.

Beginning February 9, 2010, Avaya will no longer sell Avaya-branded headsets manufactured by Plantronics. However, Plantronics will continue to manufacture and sell headsets designed for Avaya solutions, and Avaya Germany will continue to purchase headsets directly from Plantronics.

Between now and February 8 it’s business as usual.  On February 9, 2010 Avaya-branded inventory will be shifted to Plantronics brand.  Plantronics will continue to manufacture and sell the same headsets designed for Avaya solutions under the Plantronics name and logo. All these Plantronics headsets will be available for sale through the Plantronics Authorized Distributors and Solution Providers for use with Avaya solutions worldwide.

Click here to read the entire press release.

Plantronics announced Electronic Hookswitch (EHS) and ring detection capability for Avaya’s suite of one-X products with the release of Persono® Suite 1.1 Call Control software. The Persono Suite 1.1 release makes Plantronics the only headset manufacturer to add Call Control functionality to one-X® Communicator and one-X® Agent.

Plantronics line of contact center and enterprise headsets benefit from this tighter engineering integration with Avaya’s leading Unified Communications offering. The combination of a Plantronics headset with Persono Suite 1.1 gives employees an optimal end user UC experience with easy access to controls for call answer, call release and call end, volume control and mute right from the headset - a clear advantage to end user adoption of UC telephony.

Q: Will my Plantronics CS55/HL10 work with either a digital or analog phone system?

A: With the CS55/HL10 combination you will be connecting the wireless headset base to the phone where the handset is connected.  Think of it as a wireless extension of your handset. By reconnecting your handset to the front of your wireless headset base you now have a choice between headset and handset.

This will work with either a digital phone, like Cisco or Nortel, or an analog phone, like Avaya Partner or what you would have at home. Remember, if you are using this at home, your phone cannot have remote cordless units or any features on the handset.

Q: I purchased a Y-Training Cable (part #27019-03) to use on my Avaya Phone with a HIP cord (part# 61804-03). I can not get the training cable to fit on my HIP cord, what am I doing wrong?

A: Make sure you are plugging your two headsets into the two short cords on the training cable. Plug the HIP cord into the longer cord on the other end of the cable.