Peabody Orlando Hotel Turns IT Services to Profit With Avaya Networking Solutions

BASKING RIDGE, NJ--(Marketwire - Jul 31, 2012) -

• New Avaya network earns the Peabody Orlando approximately $300,000 in annual revenue from convention center services
  
  
• 10GbE communications for meetings and convention activities creates new revenue streams for the hotel
  
  
• Avaya network supports 4,000 phones, 500 wireless access points and 50 servers capable of handling more than 50 terabytes of data
  

Avaya today announced that the Peabody Orlando Hotel is earning approximately $300,000 in annual revenue from convention center services gained from the implementation of a new Avaya network. By upgrading its new convention center and expanded hotel to an always-on network, the Peabody Orlando has turned its IT services from a cost center to a profit center -- a rare occurrence in the hotel industry.

As part of a $450 million expansion and renovation project, in which the Peabody Orlando grew its meeting space from 60,000 to 300,000 square feet, the hotel selected Avaya to help it meet its vision of creating revenue from its IT services, rather than just adding costs to the hotel's bottom line. The Peabody Orlando is the largest non-gaming hotel in the U.S. to earn the Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star rating, a distinction it has earned for 23 consecutive years.

With its new Avaya network, the Peabody Orlando can provide super-fast 10 gigabit communications for meetings and convention activities, and create new revenue streams instead of outsourcing these services to an external service provider. The network not only meets the communications need of today's tech savvy hotel guests, it also powers the Peabody Orlando's busy call center and provides complete redundancy to help ensure that service is never interrupted. The Avaya network supports 4,000 phones, 500 wireless access points and 50 servers, which can handle more than 50 terabytes of data.

Avaya helped the Peabody Orlando IT team achieve their revenue-generating objectives by collapsing several independent competitor networks into one converged infrastructure that can be maintained with minimal IT staff. The new network also contributes to the hotel's "Greener Peabody" environmental commitment by dramatically reducing energy consumption through a much smaller footprint: the old network required a 300 square-foot telecom room with a dedicated data center backup; today, the hotel's new network can be measured in square inches.

The Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch (ERS) 8800 resides in the core of the Peabody Orlando's new network. Resilient and flexible, the ERS 8800 will scale to affordably meet the Peabody Orlando's expanding communications services for the next five to 10 years. The ERS 8800 delivers full-featured network virtualization capabilities, exceptional value and cost-effectiveness, and class-leading 10G Ethernet port densities.

This announcement highlights Avaya's commitment to bringing The Power of We™ to every Avaya customer to help drive faster collaboration, smarter decisions and better business results.

Quotes
"For us to retain a Four Diamond, Four Star quality hotel rating, we must be able to quickly mobilize and act on behalf of our guests. In today's connected world, the network plays a big role in the services we offer and it becomes a key selling point to customers. We wanted a hotel network that would provide guests with the same high level of quality they get at work or at home. It also had to meet our internal needs and be a source of revenue for us. Working with Avaya gave us a very talented group of implementation specialists who were able to look at our complete needs and get very excited about the project. And by using a single vendor, I only need to make one phone call to solve a problem."
--Brian Seays, regional IT director, Peabody Hotel Group

Additional Resources

• Learn more about Avaya Networking and the Avaya ERS 8800
• Read about Avaya's Hospitality Solutions
• Visit the Peabody Orlando Hotel

Tags
Avaya, hospitality, hotel, Peabody Orlando, network, ERS 8800, solution

About The Peabody Orlando
The Peabody Orlando currently offers 1,641 ultra-luxurious guestrooms, 300,000 total square feet of state-of-the-art, flexible function space, a 22,000-square-foot, full-service spa, salon and fitness center and 10 delectable dining and entertainment options. Peabody Hotels, comprising The Peabody Orlando, The Peabody Memphis and The Peabody Little Rock (all Forbes Travel Guide Four Star rated hotels) is a division within the portfolio Peabody Hotel Group of Memphis, Tennessee. To learn more visit www.PeabodyOrlando.com

About Avaya
Avaya is a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, providing unified communications, contact centers, networking and related services to companies of all sizes around the world. For more information please visit www.avaya.com.

Certain statements contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "should" or "will" or other similar terminology. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While we believe these expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections are reasonable, such forward-looking statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. These and other important factors may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. For a list and description of such risks and uncertainties, please refer to Avaya's filings with the SEC that are available at www.sec.gov. Avaya disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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