Avaya Inc. (NYSE:AV), a global leader in business communications applications, systems and services, today announced the recipients of its BusinessPartner Awards, recognizing excellence among it growing community of Middle East-based channel partners.

On the sidelines of Avaya's annual BusinessPartner conference, 10 regional companies and individuals were presented  with awards for various accomplishments.

UAE-based IT distributor Al Masa was presented with the 'Power of One' award for 2006 with Future Technology being awarded Partner of the year 2006 for excellence in IP Telephony. Egypt's Orascom won partner of the year 2006 for expertise in contact centre applications. Aptec from the UAE and Libatel from Lebanon both won SME (small and medium enterprise) Distributor of the Year 2006,

while Saudi Arabia's A.S. Bugshan & Bros. (WESA) was named as Avaya's SME Reseller of the Year 2006. The project of the year award went to Qatar's Momenta for its work on the Avaya Contact Center, delivering the recent Asian Games in Doha. East Meets West (EMW) was recognized as Avaya's partner of the year for converged solutions, while Jordanian partner Artelco took home the partner of the year award for delivering customer satisfaction.

 'Avaya's growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) depends directly on our association with our business partners,' said Roger El-Tawil, channel and marketing director for Avaya MENA.

 'More than 60 per cent of our revenue for EMEA (excluding Germany) in 2006 has been achieved through our channel partners. Partners are integral to our success; we consider them as an extension of the Avaya team. By recognising their efforts in 2006 we not only create confidence and motivation, but also highlight the key growth opportunities in the region for 2007.'

El-Tawil added: 'We will continue to reinforce our partnerships through a clear channel strategy, scalable channel infrastructure, and value-based programs, ensuring success through leveraging and obtaining new capabilities to increase market share.'

More than 200 members of the Avaya channel community attended the 'Power of One' BusinessPartner event last week, which also included solution exhibitions from Avaya Development Connect partners including Al Masa, Emerging Technologies, Extreme Networks, FVC, HP Procurve, Juniper Networks, New Voice, Polycom, Teleopti, Tiger and Wipro.