Cisco Jabber vs Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)

• As an on-prem solution is possible to have voice access to the organization co workers and the PSTN, using the own extension number, even when connected from internet (using Expressway - no need to have a vpn or lan connection) from any device.
• Easy to collaborate from any device (mobile and personal computers). Multiplatform.
• Administrators able to customize the application's features as much as they need.
• Easy to integrate with Active Directory and Outlook. Unique user and password.
• Voice calls and messaging completely secure.
• Persistence chat for mobile.

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• Device failover and fallback. Because all devices ( IP phones, gateways, trunks, etc.) are distributed across all active servers, they are able to register with other active servers in case the current becomes unavailable. In this way, you can reduce the impact of any server becoming unavailable.
• Virtualization. Call Manager appliance can run under virtualized environments.
• Several features such as Survivable Remote Site Telephony makes Call Manager the best IP telephony solution in the market.
• Wide quantity and variety of end-user devices, including the most newest and modern ones in the market that can fit any budget and need.
• Call Manager is intended to be integrated with the newest collaboration tools like Webex and Jabber for call processing purposes.
• Great customer support services from the Vendor. The Technical Assistance Center is fantastic, experienced engineers are ready to help quickly out with any request.

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• There is some brand confusion that exists between Cisco communication products. This is more relevant to the support personnel and engineers that would be making decisions to implement the product. Cisco has their Spark/WebEx platform that provides collaboration/communication functionality and more to the end users. Cisco has stated at some conferences that I attended that they are committed to maintaining and developing the Cisco Jabber platform still so that is very promising since the product serves different needs.
• Cisco Jabber is a little complex to implement properly in your environment. The larger the communication cluster the more complicated it can become. There are also some additional features like persistent chat that require extra resources like a standalone database for persistent chat.

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• Remote working - CUCM really struggles when it comes to remote work. In order to access the system remotely, a VPN or DirectAccess must be used.
• Extreme complexity - While CUCM does have more settings for flexibility, this also means there's more chances to mess up a setting and render a phone or line unusable, and there's much, much more to know about the system.
• No cloud solution - CUCM requires on site servers. Currently, Cisco does not have a cloud solution for their call manager.

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• Jabber has provided a very functional alternative to our company to Lotus Sametime. We had been using Sametime for years, and as we were moving out of the Lotus/Domino ecosystem, Jabber has provided a replacement with the chat system, but also means to do voice and video calls.
• Although handy, intensive usage of Jabber can be a curse for a company (including ours). Every information stored in Jabber is only available to the two people involved in the conversation. Without a proper knowledge management strategy, this can mean that a lot of valuable information can be shared privately as peer-to-peer conversations, and not available to people who need it.
• Another downside of Jabber is that it can multiply stress for some people, who can be contacted very often, and be interrupted at critical moments. This can introduce additional context switching, and reduce the productivity of some people.

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• This stuff is pricey. CUCM has to be tied together with a whole other host of Cisco call servers in order for it to do everything you need it to do, so there is always some other expensive license to buy every time you want to add or change something, so it can be a serious money pit. But if your leaders want the very best, and they want to keep everything in-house, this is probably your solution.
• Goodwill from leadership is way up, thanks to CUCM. The feature set is enormous, so we can do almost anything you can imagine with our phone system, and our leadership loves the video features and the way it integrates with WebEx and other related components.

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