Avaya wraps up collaboration in tidy package — but don’t call it a tablet

“Tablet” has become such a buzzword that any mobile computing device larger than a smartphone and lacking a physical keyboard is promptly slapped with the moniker and billed an iPad rival. Thus, the confusion around Avaya’s newly announced Flare Experience is understandable, and Avaya’s description doesn’t help much either: “The industry’s first, next-generation user experience that delivers unique collaboration capabilities across video, voice and text.” (Is “experience” the new word for “solution”?)

Basically, Avaya has announced new hardware and software geared toward unified communications, especially telepresence and videoconferencing. The most tabletlike component of the Experience is the Avaya Desktop Video Device, which features an 11.6-inch HD touchscreen with video and audio capabilities, a 720-pixel HD camera, and built-in dual microphones. It includes an unspecified number of USB ports, and it supports SIP and Wi-Fi.

[ Also on InfoWorld.com: Dell Inspiron Duo boasts innovative hybrid design — but little else | Get the scoop on the Flare Experience and more in the IDG interview with Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy. | Keep up on key mobile developments and insights with the Mobile Edge blog and Mobilize newsletter. ]

But Avaya isn’t pushing the device as a tablet — and rightly so. Note the word “desktop” in its name, for starters. Also, touting the device as a tablet wouldn’t be prudent, given that Google itself has said the Android OS is not designed for the tablet form factor, as Hugo Barra, director of products for mobile at Google, told TechRadar earlier this month:

Froyo is not optimised for use on tablets. If you want Android market on that platform, the apps just wouldn’t run, [Froyo] is just not designed for that form factor. We want to make sure that we’re going to create an application distribution mechanism for the Android market, to ensure our users have right experience.

Back to the Experience: Avaya is using the nontablet device as a vehicle for its newly released Avaya Aura 6.0 collaboration software, a package that delivers a one-stop integrated shop for all collaboration needs, including videoconferencing, texting, email, calendar, contacts, and so forth.

The Avaya is capable of running Android apps, but considering its $2,000 price tag, you’re presumably buying it for its high-end collaborative functionality, not for running business apps on a platform that isn’t optimized for the system’s form factor. Also, Avaya announced that Aura 6.0 will be made available for other systems in the future, including PCs, laptops, tablet PCs, and smartphones — meaning you can save on that two grand and load up the software on your existing machine — at the risk of inferior videoconferencing.

The closest rival to the Avaya Experience is Cisco’s forthcoming Cius. The Cius promises to be a rich collaboration device, thanks to such features as the requisite HD display, camera, and speakers, as well as a specially designed docking station for a desktop experience (that is, the ability to use a large-screen monitor to do your Cius computing).

Cisco is also framing the Cius as a potential supplement or full-blown replacement for a thick Windows PC client through the magic of desktop virtualization — but I’ll believe it when I see it.

And the iPad? It’s most certainly not a rival to Avaya’s collaboration package device. The iPad’s strength isn’t collaboration. It doesn’t even have a camera (yet). It’s a media consumption device with questionable applications in the business world.

This article, “Avaya wraps up collaboration in tidy package — but don’t call it a tablet,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog.