Cisco Hosted Unified Communications Services vs Intermedia Unite

Likelihood to Recommend

It is well suited for: Clients with call managers that want to continue using Cisco and want to minimize the new CAPEX. Clients that want to outsource the platform management and support.Clients that have a variation on the number of extensions.Although, Cisco HCS, is a solution that has a higher opex than the ones supported in ISP IP Centrex.

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Rui Ferraz

Technical Consultant

VodafoneTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees

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If you have seasonal workers, need to quickly scale, or cut contracts, [Intermedia] Unite is awesome. Highly recommend for companies that need an at home workspace.

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John Rivers

Owner, IT Consultant

AO IT ConsultingComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees

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Pros

VoIP best practices
UC and IM
Centralized management and provisioning
Reduced OPEX/CAPEX in the implementation
Security and integration with other UC platforms using SIP (Except Lync)

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Rui Ferraz

Technical Consultant

VodafoneTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees

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No contracts
Scale up or down very quickly
Easy to deploy - no hardware required.

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John Rivers

Owner, IT Consultant

AO IT ConsultingComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Cons

Integration with contact center plaforms
Integration with other UC platforms
Lower the tennant size and clusters capacity
Cisco's pressure to buy more and more licences, even not having a stale client pipeline (From the ISP point of view)

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Rui Ferraz

Technical Consultant

VodafoneTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees

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The price is on the higher end
Normal issues for VoIP - if users have low bandwidth, high jitter or latency

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John Rivers

Owner, IT Consultant

AO IT ConsultingComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees

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Usability

No score

No answers yet

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Intermedia Unite 9.0

Based on 1 answer

The web interface takes a little getting used to, but once you are familiar, it is very easy to use and administrate. The end user has a very easy to use app.

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John Rivers

Owner, IT Consultant

AO IT ConsultingComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees

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Support Rating

No score

No answers yet

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Intermedia Unite 9.0

Based on 1 answer

Intermedia [Unite] support is top notch. Their response time is great and don't have a lot of issues.

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John Rivers

Owner, IT Consultant

AO IT ConsultingComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Cisco HCS platform is to be seen as a centralized UC platforms, that can be scalable as an IP Centrex solution and as rich in functionalities as a Cisco CUCM. If you're looking for a solution and your main focus is IM & P functionalities rather than voice, Lync is a good solution. If your focus is voice and telephony, Cisco is a better solution

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Rui Ferraz

Technical Consultant

VodafoneTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees

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[Intermedia] Unite has no contracts and offers great service. Other companies require contracts, and for highly scalable businesses, this isn't optimal.

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John Rivers

Owner, IT Consultant

AO IT ConsultingComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees

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Return on Investment

Reduces the need to have a higher CAPEX in order to buy all the licenses at the start of the project.
The licensing is perpetual, the only associated cost with the licenses are SWSS.
Desktop sharing isn't a functionality.
Cisco SMB series can be used only with the higher cost licensing (Foundation/Standard).

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Rui Ferraz

Technical Consultant

VodafoneTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

During offseason, we scaled back to 150 phones and during peak, we scaled up to 400 phones. No contracts, no fees, just month to month billing. Awesome
Support and ease of deployment has been a huge ROI for [Intermedia] Unite.

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John Rivers

Owner, IT Consultant

AO IT ConsultingComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Cisco Hosted Unified Communications Services Editions & Modules

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Additional Pricing Details

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General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Intermedia Unite Editions & Modules

Edition

Unite Pro	$27.99¹
Unite Enterprise	$32.99¹

per user, per month, plus taxes and fees

Additional Pricing Details

Intermedia Unite helps employees to be more productive and collaborative, increasing efficiency and decreasing the costs of expensive on-premises systems.