Lenovo (LNVGY) and Avaya (AV) have announced plans to collaborate on IP and unified communications solutions that combine both companies' technologies.

Lenovo and Avaya will work together to enhance the IP communications experience on ThinkPad notebooks, giving business users the highest levels of security, usability and quality of service as they place and receive phone calls from their notebook PCs.

"Today's professionals work and communicate with colleagues and family at all hours of the day and from different locations outside the office, so it is increasingly important that they have efficient and cost effective communication tools," said Peter Hortensius, senior vice president of Lenovo's notebook business unit. "Avaya's IP telephony solutions, combined with ThinkPad notebooks, allow users to take their office phone with them on their PCs and securely make calls while at home or on the road."

The joint solution will enable Lenovo's market-leading integrated fingerprint reader and Password Manager technologies to, for the first time, support Avaya's IP Softphone solution to boost user authentication with a swipe of a finger. The combination aims to help prevent unauthorized calls from the PC, and prevent unauthorized access to the user's contact list and call history. The Lenovo and Avaya solution will make it easy for users to gain secure biometric access to communications capabilities with one touch of the fingerprint reader located on the wrist pad of their notebook PCs.

Integration between Avaya's industry-leading IP communications software and Lenovo's ThinkLight located on the top of the screen bezel is also being demonstrated today at VoiceCon as a future capability. This feature would transform the keyboard illumination function into a visual alert to check voice mail.

"Avaya's Unified Communications initiatives increase the communication and collaboration capabilities available to ThinkPad notebook users, such as 'click-to-call' integration with Microsoft Office Communicator or IBM Lotus SameTime, helping support more productive activities," said Eileen Rudden, vice president and general manager, Unified Communications, Avaya. "We are looking forward to working with Lenovo to deliver the best user experience with ThinkPad notebooks."

The first version of the Avaya unified communications solution for ThinkPad notebooks is planned for the middle of 2007.