AvayaLive Engage to close by end of year

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Aphrodite -- better known as Venus de Milo -- on display in Art Gallery 25. (Image courtesy MellaniuM.)
Aphrodite — better known as Venus de Milo — on display in Art Gallery 25. (Image courtesy MellaniuM.)

AvayaLive Engage, one of the three major enterprise-focused virtual environment platforms, is shutting down the company announced.

Avaya is no longer accepting new customers, and service for existing customers will end when their current contracts expire.

The platform is shutting down because the browser are no longer supporting the required plugin, said Ken Rigby, CEO of MellaniuM, one of the top consulting companies working on the platform.

“We are very disappointed after spending so much time promoting and creating virtual worlds,” said Ken Rigby, CEO of MellaniuM, one of the top consulting companies working on the platform. “However, Avaya never seemed to have the passion [for AvayaLive Engage]. I can’t understand why they didn’t, and why they won’t let anyone take over its running.”

The platform is shutting down because the browser are no longer supporting the required plugin, he told Hypergrid Business.

“They have stated that the cost of going it alone is prohibitive,” he said. “We are starting to move to Unreal Engine 4, which has many advantages and will be like AvayaLive but not in a plugin but rather on Steam.”

AvayaLive was a mesh-based platform, and all those models can be easily moved to other platforms, he added.

A virtual meeting in AvayaLive Engage. (Image courtesy Dan Pontefract.)
A virtual meeting in AvayaLive Engage. (Image courtesy Dan Pontefract.)

“We’re helping several of our Avaya clients find alternative platforms right now,” said Anders Gronstedt, president of the virtual education consulting firm The Gronstedt Group, Inc.

Customers have been using AvayaLive Engage for virtual conferences, classes, and virtual offices, he said.

Anders Gronstedt
Anders Gronstedt

“They have seen it coming for about a year now so they’re not surprised,” he added. “We’ve been conducting an exhaustive evaluation of platform options this spring for our Avaya clients.”

There are a number of legacy 3D platforms vying for Avaya business, and they might get a short-lived windfall, he said.

“But I think the long term winner in this market place will be platforms that offer a pathway to virtual reality access — along with laptop access,” he said. “That’s where this market is heading.”

General interest in AvayaLive Engage platform has been declining as well.

Interest in AvayaLive Engage (blue line), formerly known as web.alive (red line.) (Image courtesy Google Trends.)
Interest in AvayaLive Engage (blue line), formerly known as web.alive (red line). (Image courtesy Google Trends.)

The AvayaLive community forums haven’t seen any activity since 2013. The links to external forums on the official AvayaLive Engage community page are all dead.

Except for the shutdown announcement, the LinkedIn group has only had two posts in the past year, the previous one six months ago. That compares to about 40 posts dated a year ago.

Meanwhile, interest in Protosphere, its chief enterprise competitor, has also seen a similar decline in interest, according to Google Trends.

Maria Korolov
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