Avaya Aura vs. Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)

Avaya Aura is secure and reliable; in our case, for customers that looking for stable solutions on voice, Avaya Aura is that solution fit. In a scenario where our customer is looking for digitalization, I think Avaya Aura is less appropriate.

Incentivized

The Cisco Unified Communications Manager platform would be most suited for the below scenarios. 1. An organization with very restricted policies and compliance where can't move to cloud-based solutions for data security. They can install the CUCM on-premises. 2. An organization that is still on a legacy phone system could adopt CUCM to save costs and have better services.

• So one of the things it's done well is it's stable. It's networked at all the sites. We have five-digit dialing everywhere, and one of the features we like is the crisis alert feature. So if somebody calls 911 at a particular school, it sets an alarm off on the phones upfront and displays the extension number and the room number of who called 911. So they can respond and they know where to send first responders. So it's pretty cool.

Incentivized

• This solution is extremely stable and has been running in our environment for several years without (unscheduled) downtime.
• The ability to have voicemails automatically sent as an email message is extremely helpful in helping us to keep in touch while away from the desk.
• The Call Manager provides us very granular settings to route our calls as we want.

Incentivized

• Pricing is always a concern.
• How to maintain the attractive price point as they transition from perpetual licensing to subscription-based.
• Offering the benefits of 'economies of scale' even in situations where the transitioning is not wholesale from the onset but incremental over time.

Incentivized

• Administration web page is little bit hard to understand at the beginning specially if you are not familiar with naming convention and GU Interfaces.
• Call Detail Record interface is fine but would be desirable to include more options that fit organization needs in terms of reporting purposes.
• Self Care Portal interface could be more useful to the end user if it includes options to manage some features without administrators involving.

Incentivized

We are happy with this product since we have used until now around 10 years.

Incentivized

We have been using this product for 20+ years and will continue too. This is a great product and new features are always coming out.

Incentivized

Although it's very easy to use, once you understand the concepts of IP telephony, as I said before, I think Cisco could have improved the management interface of the platform, adding modern technologies and the design language of the other platforms like DNA Center, etc. This interface hasn't had a substantial improvement for about 10 years

Incentivized

CUCM is supported by most third-party vendors for related products, so it makes finding solutions to specific needs easy. Also Cisco TAC is very knowledgeable, and we have never run into a problem they have not been able to resolve. Usually they are resolved without the need to escalate tickers either.

Incentivized

This was the first phone system we implemented that could span multiple locations. We were very satisfied once fully implemented

Incentivized

So I've seen the Cisco product out there. I've seen the old Nortel products, Mitel, I've been doing this for a long time. I've seen a lot of other products. And Avaya, Nortel were the Western Electric and Northern Electric of the world way back when. So pretty much the grandparents of all the other stuff that's out there. So their foundation is really strong. So I think this product stacks up amazing, especially for places that are mission critical, like hospitals, maybe the military, and stuff like that. They have the app, if you need an app, they do stuff on mobile devices, and that you can have remote workers. So I think they stack up really well against the other companies. The problem is probably advertising and the schools that are teaching this stuff are promoting a particular product and that's where the other products have the advantage. They're in the schools and it's, I call it indoctrination, but they're in the schools and they're teaching the people. The other product, their competitors are teaching in the schools, their product line. And that's how they can do promotion better.

Incentivized

We have been a Cisco based shop and have looked at other cloud voice options such as MS Teams pbx, and others, but ultimately, the features, endpoints, and reliability of Cisco has been the common factor in staying with them as our voice provider. Their integrations, room systems, and hybrid design allows for us to be flexible and keep a high up time vs reliance on 100% cloud.

Incentivized

• As far as a negative impact on a surface level, not too much negative impact was to go right into that and we had the scare eight months ago. Well, we didn't know if Avaya was a product we were going to be able to continue with. But after this conference, we got the warm and fuzzies back. That is a product that we can keep for a number of years and they'll continue to grow and keep on upgrading it and stay current. So we'll be sticking with that.

Incentivized

• Communication and collaboration - Our offices are able to communicate both internally and externally due to this system.
• Down time - Struggles with CUCM has caused a lot of down time due to the instability of the system.
• High Costs - the cost of both the license and the maintenance was much higher than other systems.

Incentivized