The Communications Consumer Panel has welcomed Ofcom's new rules to prevent the mis-selling of fixed-line phone services.

"Mis-selling of fixed-line phone services is one of the longest-standing problems affecting consumers in the communications sector," commented Panel chair Anna Bradley. "We welcome this move to strengthen the rules and to allow Ofcom to enforce them more effectively."

But the Panel warns that the communications sector will need wider-ranging changes in future to keep up with the way consumers buy products.

"Consumers are buying bundles of services, such as fixed-line telephone, mobile and broadband, in increasing numbers and each element of these bundles have a different switching process," Said Bradley. "We want industry to develop a single, quick and easy switching process that can be used for all these products as soon as possible."

…Company Honored for Success in Feedback Management Sector…

New York, NY and Oslo, Norway - March 18th, 2010: Confirmit, the leading global software vendor for Customer Feedback, Employee Feedback and Market Research has announced that it has been recognized as a Service leader in the Enterprise Feedback Management category of CRM Magazine's 2010 Service Awards. The title has been awarded for the company's focus on high-quality customer experiences through the sophisticated integration of people, processes and technologies.

Gary Schwartz, SVP Marketing at Confirmit commented "we're proud to be recognized as a Service Leader in the feedback management sector. The Confirmit Horizons platform enables businesses to build outstanding Voice of the Customer programs, which incorporate multi-channel feedback capture, CRM integration and the most advanced reporting platform in the world."

Recipients were determined through an extensive three-month process and proprietary rating formula that involves industry analysts, financial and corporate information, product and functionality assessments, and scores reflecting customer satisfaction. Confirmit was rewarded for what analysts referred to as "a continued commitment to analytics and strong surveying technology" throughout 2009.

"CRM magazine is pleased to see the steadfast devotion to service excellence demonstrated by the companies and individuals in the 2010 CRM Service Awards," said David Myron, the magazine's editorial director. "These award recipients are proving that organizations can streamline business processes, maximize profitability, and improve customer service interactions."

Schwartz concludes "we're now building on the success that has brought us to Service Leader status. The recent launch of Confirmit Horizons Version 15 introduced even greater flexibility for users of the platform to distribute reports and analysis to business users. Confirmit's award-winning Solutions provide our clients with the security of rapid implementation and fast return on investment. We're listening to our customers to ensure that our efforts are focusing on the areas that matter to them, which is what being a Service Leader is about".

Ends

About Confirmit
Confirmit is the world's leading SaaS vendor for Customer Feedback, Employee Feedback, and Market Research applications. The company has more than 240 employees and offices in Oslo (headquarters), Guildford, London, Moscow, New York, San Francisco, and Yaroslavl. Confirmit's software is also distributed through partner resellers in Barcelona, Kuwait City, Madrid, Milan, Pattaya, Sydney, and Tokyo.

Confirmit targets Global 5000 companies and Market Research agencies worldwide with a wide range of software products for feedback / data collection, panel management, data processing, analysis, and reporting. Customers include British Airways, Dow Chemical, Farmers Insurance, GlaxoSmithKline, Halifax Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Intrawest, Ipsos, Nielsen, The NPD Group, Safeco Insurance, Statoil, Symantec, Virgin Media, and Wells Fargo. Visit www.confirmit.com for more information.

Press Contacts
Gary Schwartz, SVP Marketing: +1 212 660 1816
EMEA PR Contacts, Indigo River: Andrea Burton +44 (0)1985 850320 / Melanie Oxford +44 (0)7515 632065
US PR Contacts, Hart Boillot: Perrin McCormick / Andrea Doeringer +1 781 893 0053

Solution will enable more employees to easily collaborate via video over multiple locations in businesses with mixed communications environments

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - Avaya today announced an agreement with LifeSize Communications to establish interoperability between the Avaya Aura™ unified communications (UC) platform and LifeSize HD video conferencing systems. The combined solutions will enable broad-scale deployment of HD video conferencing with the high-quality and flexibility of LifeSize video systems and the centralised management and control capabilities of Avaya Aura.

Using the SIP-based Avaya Aura, enterprises will be able to distribute video conferencing capabilities over multiple locations in businesses with multi-vendor environments. Employees will be able to easily collaborate with each other by video -- regardless of the communications system which serves their specific location. IT will enjoy low bandwidth utilisation, streamlined management, and lower costs by routing video over their internal network.

"As working environments become increasingly distributed, video communications provide an outstanding ability to draw teams together and enable effective collaboration as part of a cohesive unified communication experience," said Alan Baratz, senior vice president and president, Global Communications Solutions, Avaya. "Avaya's work with LifeSize Communications and others will help make it easier and more cost-effective for companies to deploy video to employees at all levels of their organisation."

"Avaya's leadership in the enterprise and LifeSize's proven HD video solutions are an ideal combination for organisations seeking to easily and broadly deploy high quality video communications to fundamentally improve their business," said Craig Malloy, chief executive officer of LifeSize Communications. "Interoperability with Avaya is yet another step forward to delivering on the promise of video communications for anyone, everywhere."

Organisations that want a choice of video anywhere will benefit from the resulting solution. LifeSize high definition video can be easily deployed, and is a cost-effective solution delivering superior HD quality for small or large group video conferencing. Avaya Aura enables the centralised deployment of audio, video and web applications over multiple locations, as well as the creation of "application profiles" based on employee needs.

Companies will be able to more broadly extend access to video conferencing to those individual workers or teams that are moderately to highly collaborative, thus increasing their productivity and benefiting from a low total cost of ownership. In addition, with Avaya Aura, organisations can realise network savings and increased control by combining audio and video onto a single network, and establishing network-aware bandwidth management policies to control usage and deliver a high quality user-experience.

LifeSize is a Platinum member of the Avaya DevConnect program - an initiative to develop, market and sell innovative third-party products that interoperate with Avaya technology and extend the value of a company's investment in its network. Through the program, products undergo rigorous compatibility testing by a team of Avaya engineers. Doing so ensures businesses can confidently add best-in-class capabilities to their network without having to replace their existing infrastructure—speeding deployment of new applications and reducing both network complexity and implementation cost.

According to the 2010 Frost and Sullivan World Videoconferencing Endpoints Market Report, the total revenues for the worldwide videoconferencing endpoints market reached an estimated $1.25 billion in 2009.*

"As video gets increasingly incorporated into larger enterprise communications suites, it is largely shifting from a point solution to integrated collaboration," said Roopam Jain, principal analyst, Frost and Sullivan. "Moreover, mass adoption of video will largely happen through integrated applications and unified communications solutions."

*Source: 2010 Frost and Sullivan World Videoconferencing Endpoint Market Report*

About Avaya
Avaya is a global leader in enterprise communications systems. The company provides unified communications, contact centers, and related services directly and through its channel partners to leading businesses and organizations around the world. Enterprises of all sizes depend on Avaya for state-of-the-art communications that improve efficiency, collaboration, customer service and competitiveness. For more information please visit www.avaya.com.

About LifeSize Communications
LifeSize Communications is a world leader in high definition video communications and telepresence. Founded by industry veterans in 2003, LifeSize pioneered high definition video communications to make communicating at a distance as natural and effective as being in the same room, for anyone, anywhere. LifeSize became a division of Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI) (SIX: LOGN) in December 2009, sharing a vision of everywhere there is voice there should be video. More information about LifeSize can be found at www.lifesize.com.

Media Inquiries:
Rajinder Thind
Avaya Media Relations
+44 207.395.7180
avayauk@fleishman.com

Helen Briggs, who joined Westcon in January 2010, has been named as Head of Sales for the newly combined Avaya and Nortel business.

She joins from distributor Avnet where she was Business Unit Manager for Nortel. During 2009 she worked closely with Nortel, pulling through the Chapter 11 with a profitable result in sales.

Prior to joining Avnet, Briggs worked for KCom in the Public Sector industry for over seven years, focusing on account management.

"I aim to work with our partners on status, accreditation and growth. I believe Westcon has the right investment in place to service our business partners and help them to achieve incremental business across multiple technology offerings."