It goes without saying that we’ve been away for too long. Coffee with Craig and Kevin return for their first episode of the new year.

The guys tell you more about the partner opportunity to go home with a first-ever Digi Award at the upcoming Channel Partners Conference & Expo — an homage of course to our own digital services robot mascot. We’ll also offer up our first preview of some of the hottest attractions coming to CP Expo in Vegas in April. (Here is where you can go to learn more about the Digi Awards and to fill out an application.)

We also welcome in Channel Partners/Channel Futures editor Edward Gately, who this week was live on the scene at Avaya’s Engage event, where he caught up with Dino DiPalma, president, strategic partners and global accounts at the company. DiPalma talks about the biggest trends in unified communications and contact centers, sharing the goals he has for Avaya‘s partners this year.

The company now is more than a year removed from chapter 11 bankruptcy, and it’s full speed ahead because its partners demand it.

“‘You just need to go faster. Continue to support us, but go faster. You’re not going fast enough,'” DiPalma quoted one of Avaya’s partners as saying. “Now we think we’re going fast enough, but obviously our partners are feeling the pressure of the market, and they need us to accelerate our portion of the technology. We focus on the technology and bringing that … so we need to do it faster for our partners.”

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