Avaya IP Office is a communications solution for small and medium-size businesses. It is available in the cloud, on premise or hybrid deployments are all supported with IP Office along with the ability to migrate from one to the other. The included Avaya Equinox experience provides a single app for voice, video, messaging, conferencing and calendar and keeps employees productive on any device, from any location.
$82
per user/per month
Vonage Business Communications
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Vonage Business Cloud is a communication solution aimed at small-midsize companies. It integrates with third party applications, and includes IP-PBX capabilities, video conferencing, and collaboration tools. Pricing starts at $19.99 per month and increases with the amount of phone lines needed.
So I haven't had one where it's not appropriate at all unless somebody was going pure cloud. Obviously, this is not a cloud product, but from an on-premise solution like the IP office is, we've sold it to companies that have five users and we've sold it to customers that have thousands of users. So it's very expandable, adjustable to be it's hybrid, so it's IP and digital mix capabilities. So that's a strong suit.
Vonage Business Cloud is well suited if you have small or limited IT staff and/or you have many remote workers and little or no on-prem hardware. I would recommend Vonage to small to medium-sized businesses. It would not be well suited to a large organization where everyone works in the same building and the IT staff has servers and staff to manage a VoIP system.
Centralization is key. If you want to have all of your facilities on one phone system, to help mitigate telecom costs this is the system for you. You purchase the necessary licensing (one time purchase) and the licenses stay with you as long as you stay on that platform!
Flexibility is fantastic. Whether you want to use the IP Office as a key system, or replace your existing partner system, or run as a PBX. This system will do it all, I was very impressed with the compatibility of the IP Office with legacy equipment. Have a Partner system? Not a problem. Have a Definity system? Not a problem!
Broad based technology. You can utilize CO trunks (POTS lines), ISDN/PRI, T1, SIP, etc.... What ever your carrier hands off to you the IP Office can integrate with. No need to work with a third party vendor to get your interface up and running. AVAYA is a one stop shop, and if you have an existing warranty, just upgrade your IPOSS information on the system and your new hardware is covered.
Rush for updates. At times an updated will fix one problem, and inadvertently create another. However with due diligence from your business partner (Tektivity) patches are tested before being rolled out in production environments.
Part itemization. If you purchase a new system, the power cord does not come with the unit, that is a separate part. Very minor in the grand scheme of things but as a reseller and a customer still somewhat annoying.
Large convoluted organization. As a user trying to navigate the AVAYA website, and track down information can be daunting. Even calling support can be challenging, you never know if your call will be routed to India, Brazil, or Denver. That is why the relationship with Tektivity is so important. You can leverage your business partner to get the answers you need so you can spend your time tackling issues that need your attention.
They do not take billing support calls. Online chat only. That can be dicey.
Desktop app can have some hiccups and there are frequent updates. Sometimes it switches from my headset to webcam for no reason I can tell. Miss the call be for I figure it out.
Text messaging does not handle images. Frustrates my clients when they think they can send me a pic of a signed doc or vin# and I don't get it.
Oddly enough I have been impressed with the IP Office platform so much that I have integrated one into my home. My wife was not happy with it initially but once she started using it she was very happy with the results. It helped that I programmed it to work just like a home phone but with features and options that I can utilize remotely. I would be more than happy to put an AVAYA IP Office against any other phone system on the market, and let you be the judge.
Avaya IP Office is a great system that is somewhat affordable for most SMB's. However, In our experience, Avaya IP Office has a tendency to shelve some of the license as you upgrade the software release on the PBX switch without giving back any comparable license to compensate. The Voicemail Pro license is quite expensive and most of the functionality that most business needs are not covered in the standard voicemail offering.
I thought it had very practical and useful usability. It has a clean and simple interface with large fonts that make it easy to read. It isn't particularly difficult, although figuring out some operations may be a bit challenging. For the most part though, it isn't very difficult to use
We hardly have any issues with it to where we need to call them. There was a point where our connections across the board were terrible and it held us up in production quite a bit but since then things have been pretty simple and streamlined.
Much better feature set with Avaya IP Office, and I really feel you're getting feature-rich telephony for a well priced switch. The system is very adaptable and a much better fit than legacy key systems and cloud-based UCaaS solutions competing in the same market.
We believe Vonage Business Cloud is best for our organization over the AT&T and the Verizon platforms for several reasons including price, ease of use, connectivity, and other options. Since we have implemented this solution along with newer Polycom phones, we have had very few issues with our phones or our phone platform.
