Avaya Receives 2008 Product of the Year Award Presented by Customer Interaction Solutions(R) Magazine

BASKING RIDGE, NJ--(Marketwire - January 6, 2009) - Avaya Inc. announced today that Proactive Outreach for Financial Services has received a 2008 Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation's (TMC®) Customer Interaction Solutions magazine (www.cismag.com), the leading publication covering CRM, call centers and teleservices.

Avaya Proactive Outreach for Financial Services helps financial companies use outbound communications and self service to drive new efficiencies, improve cost-savings and enhance customer experiences. With this solution, financial companies can enhance their contact center capabilities by using outbound self service to automate and handle communications and transactions covering a customer's entire lifecycle -- from acquisition to retention to collections.

"More than ever, ensuring a high level of customer service is critical to a financial company's ongoing success," said Greg Billings, vice president, Avaya Global Professional Services. "This honor reinforces our leadership in extending the best contact center capabilities available to key vertical industries. Avaya Proactive Outreach helps financial companies deliver consistent, clear communications to customers -- something that is critical in these volatile economic times -- and we believe this solution will continue to provide significant benefits to the financial industry."

Avaya Proactive Outreach can use outbound self service personalized to each customer in order to securely handle new account openings, alert customers to overdrafts or fraud alerts, and obtain payments or promises to pay. This helps inform customers of key events, identify potential issues early, and build loyalty among customers.

"I am pleased to honor Avaya for their hard work and accomplishments. Their commitment to quality and excellence benefits the contact center experience as well as ROI for the companies that use them," said Nadji Tehrani, executive group publisher and editor-in-chief of Customer Interaction Solutions. "For 11 years, Customer Interaction Solutions magazine has recognized the companies which demonstrate excellence in technological advancement and application refinements."

The 11th Annual Product of the Year Award winners will be featured in the January 2009 issue of Customer Interaction Solutions magazine.

For more information about the Customer Interaction Solutions' 2008 Product of the Year Awards or any of the TMC media properties, please visit www.tmcnet.com.

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 Customer Interaction Solutions

Since 1982, Customer Interaction Solutions (CIS) magazine has been the voice of the call/contact center, CRM and teleservices industries. CIS magazine has helped the industry germinate, grow, mature and prosper, and has served as the leading publication in helping these industries that have had such a positive impact on the world economy to continue to thrive. Through a combination of outstanding and cutting-edge original editorial, industry voices, in-depth lab reviews and the recognition of the innovative leaders in management and technology through our highly valued awards, Customer Interaction Solutions strives to continue to be the publication that holds the quality bar high for the industry. Please visit www.cismag.com.

About TMC

Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) is an integrated global media company helping our clients build communities in print, in person and online. TMC publishes Customer Interaction Solutions, INTERNET TELEPHONY, Unified Communications, and IMS Magazine. TMC is also the first publisher to test new products in its own on-site laboratories, TMC Labs. TMCnet, TMC's Web site, is the leading source of news and articles for the communications and technology industries, serving as many as three million unique visitors globally each month according to Webtrends. In addition, TMC produces INTERNET TELPHONY Conference & EXPO, Call Center 2.0 Conference and Communications Developer Conference.

For more information about TMC, visit www.tmcnet.com.

Contact Information: Avaya Contact: Jonathan Varman 908 953 6432 jvarman@avaya.com TMC Contact: Jan Pierret 203-852-6800, ext. 228 jpierret@tmcnet.com