By Khali Henderson

Avaya Inc. is putting partners in the managed services business. The company launched Wednesday a private-label program enabling its channel partners to offer Avaya managed services branded under their own name, and priced and packaged to support their own business plans.

The announcement was made at the 2010 Avaya Americas Partner Conference this week in Nashville. More than 950 partners attended the meeting.

With the new suite of Avaya Partner-Enabled Managed Services, partners take the lead in managed service engagements while using Avaya’s NOC, applications and equipment, maintenance and other services. Partners can choose to provide some of their own support (i.e. help desk support) while Avaya handles the rest, or they can have Avaya handle all of the support. Partners can brand their services under their own name, or co-brand with Avaya.

Another option specifically for Systems Integrator and Service Provider partners, which already have their network operations in place, integrates Avaya’s support capabilities into the partner’s existing NOC, providing them with the tools, processes and training for the partner to deliver their own Avaya-based managed services offer.

Avaya Partner-Enabled Managed Services are categorized into three types of service levels:

“With this announcement, Avaya is accelerating its channel-centric approach with customer needs and partner goals in mind,” said Ed Nalbandian, vice president, Avaya Operations Services. “We are now moving to a partner-based model, supporting Avaya and non-Avaya technology, and opening up our tools and capabilities to enable partners to delivery managed services in the way that’s most optimal for them.”